Loss of large neurons and occurrence of neurofibrillary tangles in the tuberomammillary nucleus of patients with Alzheimer's disease

doi:10.1016/0304-3940(93)90019-H

Neuroscience Letters

Volume 151, Issue 2, 19 March 1993, Pages 196-199

https://doi.org/10.1016/0304-3940(93)90019-H Get rights and content

Abstract

We studied the number of large-sized neurons and neurofibrillary tangles (NFT) in the tuberomammillary nucleus (TM) of the hypothalamus from cases with Alzheimer's disease (AD) and age-matched controls. Numerous NFT were found in TM of AD. However, NFT was never observed in this nucleus of age-matched controls. The number of large-sized neurons was significantly reduced in AD compared with that in controls. Since the majority of large neurons in TM appear to correspond to histamine neurons, the loss of large neurons observed in TM may, at least partly, cause the histaminergic dysfunction in AD brain.

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Almost all histaminergic neurons are located in the hypothalamic TMN. Previous neuropathological reports describe TMN vulnerability to AD-tau starting at Braak stage 0 with accompanying neuronal loss [15,43–45]. However, those studies were either qualitative, did not use histaminergic-specific neuronal markers, or only analyzed neurons at rostral TMN levels.
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Loss of large neurons and occurrence of neurofibrillary tangles in the tuberomammillary nucleus of patients with Alzheimer's disease

Abstract

Brain Res.

Neuroscience

Neuroscience

Biol. Psychol.

J. Neurol. Sci.

Neuroscience

Histamine neurons in human hypothalamus: anatomy in normal and Alzheimer diseased brains

Neuroscience