New advances in polarized light microscopy were used to image Congo red-stained cerebral amyloidosis in sharp relief. The rotating-polarizer method was used to separate the optical effects of transmission, linear birefringence, extinction, linear dichroism, and orientation of the electric dipole transition moments and to display them as false-color maps. These effects are typically convolved in...

To clarify where and how b-amyloid begins to deposit in senile plaques, we examined the ultrastructural localization of amyloid b protein (Ab) in diffuse plaques of brains with hereditary cerebral hemorrhage with amyloidosis-Dutch type, Alzheimer disease (AD), and from nondemented aged subjects. Serial ultrathin sections of osmium-plastic blocks were immunogold-labeled for Abx-42 (Ab42), and se...

In Alzheimer's disease (AD), hallmark β-amyloid deposits are characterized by the presence of activated microglia around them. Despite an extensive characterization of the relation of amyloid plaques with microglia, little is known about the initiation of this interaction. In this study, the detailed investigation of very small plaques in brain slices in AD transgenic mice of the line APP-PS1(d...

Cognitive impairment is a common sequel to stroke; the rate of post-stroke dementia is 6% to 30%. As a predictor of long-term mortality and functional disability (independent of physical impairment), post-stroke dementia poses a huge economic and social burden in developed countries. Cerebrovascular disease may not be the only factor responsible for the cognitive decline following stroke/transi...

Variant Alzheimer disease (varAD) is clinically characterized by the combination of presenile dementia with spastic paraparesis and is caused by certain mutations of the presenilin 1 (PS-1) gene. We now present the unusual neuropathological phenotype of varAD as seen in 5 affected members of the original Finnish family with a genomic deletion encompassing exon 9 of the PS-1 gene. Their primary ...

Alzheimer disease (AD) is characterized by the accumulation of amyloid plaques and neurofibrillary tangles within selective brain regions. In addition, cell death pathways become active leading to neurodegeneration. Caspase activation, a key step in the programmed cell death pathway known as apoptosis, occurs in AD and leads to the proteolytic cleavage of several neuronal proteins. Previously, ...

Amyloid A plaques are a key pathologic feature of Alzheimer disease (AD), but whether plaque sizes increase or stabilize over the course of AD is unknown. We measured the size distribution of total immunoreactive (10D5-positive) and dense-core (Thioflavin SYpositive) plaques in the temporal neocortex of a large group of subjects with AD and age-matched plaque-bearing subjects without dementia t...

Reelin is a large extracellular glycoprotein required for proper neuronal positioning during development. In the adult brain, Reelin plays a crucial modulatory role in the induction of synaptic plasticity and successful formation of long-term memory. Recently, alterations in Reelin-mediated signaling have been suggested to contribute to neuronal dysfunction associated with Alzheimer's disease (...

Two (amyloid and presenilin) hypotheses have been proposed to explain the pathogenesis of Alzheimer's disease (AD). According to amyloid hypothesis, the main amyloid plaques which are hallmark of AD are generated by beta- and gamma-secretase mediated proteolytic processing of amyloid precursor protein (APP). The amyloid hypothesis does not adequately address the pathogenesis of the disease, how...

Alzheimer's disease is characterized in part by extracellular aggregation of the amyloid-β peptide in the form of diffuse and fibrillar plaques in the brain. Electron microscopy (EM) has made an important contribution in understanding of the structure of amyloid plaques in humans. Classical EM studies have revealed the architecture of the fibrillar core, characterized the progression of neuriti...