Uchihara T, Kondo H, Kosaka K, Tsukagoshi H
Department of Neuropathology, Psychiatric Research Institute of Tokyo, Japan.
Acta Neuropathol. 1992;83(3):271-6. doi: 10.1007/BF00296789.
Loss of neurons from the substantia nigra (SN), which is sometimes observed in Alzheimer's disease (AD), was quantitatively analyzed in 10 cases of presenile AD and 19 age-matched controls. On sections from the upper and lower portions of the SN, the pigmented zone (zona compacta) and the non-pigmented zone (zona reticulata) were delineated, and these zones were partitioned into quarters: medial, mid-medial, mid-lateral and lateral. This approach clarified topographical preference of neuronal depletion in the SN of AD; namely (1) pigmented neurons were more severely affected than non-pigmented neurons, (2) neuronal depletion was more marked in the lower SN (-38%, P less than 0.001), where the pigmented neurons in the medial quarter were most severely affected (-51%, P less than 0.001), (3) in the upper SN (neuronal loss: -21%, P less than 0.01), the pigmented neurons in the mid-medial quarter were most severely affected (-43%, P less than 0.01). These findings suggest that some groups of nigral neurons are primarily involved in presenile AD. Gallyas staining after bleaching of melanin pigments uncovered a large number of neurofibrillary tangles (NFTs) mainly in the pigmented zone, especially in the medial quarter. A large number of NFTs, scarse senile plaques, and substantial depletion of neurons form an unique combination of Alzheimer pathology in the SN not well recognized so far.
在10例早老性阿尔茨海默病（AD）患者和19例年龄匹配的对照中，对有时在AD中观察到的黑质（SN）神经元缺失进行了定量分析。在SN上部和下部的切片上，划定了色素沉着区（致密带）和非色素沉着区（网状带），并将这些区域分为四等分：内侧、中内侧、中外侧和外侧。这种方法明确了AD患者SN中神经元缺失的地形偏好；即（1）色素沉着神经元比非色素沉着神经元受影响更严重，（2）SN下部的神经元缺失更明显（-38%，P<0.001），其中内侧四分之一的色素沉着神经元受影响最严重（-51%，P<0.001），（3）在SN上部（神经元丢失：-21%）
