Thangavel R, Sahu S K, Van Hoesen G W, Zaheer A
Veterans Affair Medical Center, Iowa City, IA 52242, USA.
Neuroscience. 2008 Mar 3;152(1):50-5. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroscience.2007.12.025.
Previous studies suggested a relationship between severity of symptoms and the degree of neurofibrillary tangles (NFTs) clustering in different areas of the cortex in Alzheimer's disease (AD). The posterior inferior temporal cortex or Brodmann's area (BA 37) is involved in object naming and recognition memory. But the cellular architecture and connectivity and the NFT pathology of this cortex in AD received inadequate attention. In this report, we describe the laminar distribution and topography of NFT pathology of BA 37 in brains of AD patients by using Thionin staining for Nissl substance, Thioflavin-S staining for NFTs, and phosphorylated tau (AT8) immunohistochemistry. NFTs mostly occurred in cortical layers II, III, V and VI in the area 37 of AD brain. Moreover, NFTs appeared like a patch or in cluster pattern along the cortical layers III and V and within the columns of pyramidal cell layers. The abnormal, intensely labeled AT8 immunoreactive cells were clustered mainly in layers III and V. Based on previously published clinical correlations between cognitive abnormalities in AD and the patterns of laminar distributed NFT cluster pathology in other areas of the brain, we conclude that a similar NFT pathology that severely affected BA 37, may indicate disruption of some forms of naming and object recognition-related circuits in human AD.
先前的研究表明，在阿尔茨海默病（AD）中，症状的严重程度与皮质不同区域神经原纤维缠结（NFTs）的聚集程度之间存在关联。颞叶后下皮质或布罗德曼区（BA 37）参与物体命名和识别记忆。但AD中该皮质的细胞结构、连接性以及NFT病理学受到的关注不足。在本报告中，我们通过使用硫堇染色显示尼氏体、硫黄素-S染色显示NFTs以及磷酸化tau（AT8）免疫组织化学方法，描述了AD患者大脑中BA 37的NFT病理学的层状分布和地形图。NFTs主要出现在AD脑37区的皮质II、III、V和VI层。此外，NFTs沿皮质III和V层以及锥体细胞层柱内呈斑块状或簇状出现。异常的、强标记的AT8免疫反应性细胞主要聚集在III和V层。基于先前发表的AD认知异常与大脑其他区域层状分布的NFT簇病理学模式之间的临床相关性，我们得出结论，严重影响BA 37的类似NFT病理学可能表明人类AD中某些形式的命名和物体识别相关回路受到破坏。
