Introduction: Alzheimer's disease (AD), primary age-related tauopathy (PART), and chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) all feature hyperphosphorylated tau (p-tau)-immunoreactive neurofibrillary degeneration, but differ in neuroanatomical distribution and progression of neurofibrillary degeneration and amyloid beta (Aβ) deposition.
Methods: We used Nanostring GeoMx Digital Spatial Profiling to compare the expression of 70 proteins in neurofibrillary tangle (NFT)-bearing and non-NFT-bearing neurons in hippocampal CA1, CA2, and CA4 subregions and entorhinal cortex of cases with autopsy-confirmed AD (n = 8), PART (n = 7), and CTE (n = 5).
Results: There were numerous subregion-specific differences related to Aβ processing, autophagy/proteostasis, inflammation, gliosis, oxidative stress, neuronal/synaptic integrity, and p-tau epitopes among these different disorders.
Tauopathies are a category of neurodegenerative diseases characterized by the presence of abnormal tau protein-containing neurofibrillary tangles (NFTs). NFTs are universally observed in aging, occurring with or without the concomitant accumulation of amyloid-beta peptide (Aβ) in plaques that typifies Alzheimer disease (AD), the most common tauopathy. Primary age-related tauopathy (PART) is an Aβ-independent process that affects the medial temporal lobe in both cognitively normal and impaired subjects.
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September 2022
Age-related cognitive impairment is multifactorial, with numerous underlying and frequently co-morbid pathological correlates. Amyloid beta (Aβ) plays a major role in Alzheimer's type age-related cognitive impairment, in addition to other etiopathologies such as Aβ-independent hyperphosphorylated tau, cerebrovascular disease, and myelin damage, which also warrant further investigation. Classical methods, even in the setting of the gold standard of postmortem brain assessment, involve semi-quantitative ordinal staging systems that often correlate poorly with clinical outcomes, due to imperfect cognitive measurements and preconceived notions regarding the neuropathologic features that should be chosen for study.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe diagnosis of Parkinson's disease (PD) is challenging at all stages due to variable symptomatology, comorbidities, and mimicking conditions. Postmortem assessment remains the gold standard for a definitive diagnosis. While it is well recognized that PD manifests pathologically in the central nervous system with aggregation of α-synuclein as Lewy bodies and neurites, similar Lewy-type synucleinopathy (LTS) is additionally found in the peripheral nervous system that may be useful as an antemortem biomarker.
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