J Korean Neurol Assoc.  1991 Jun;9(2):157-170.

Morphological Changes of Somatostation Immunoreactive Neurons in Senile Dementia of Alzheimer Type

• Cho KH
• Kim SJ
• Kim BY

Abstract

Five brains from established cases of Senile Dementia of Alzheimer Type (SDAT) and six branis from cases of no clinical or neuropathological evidences of SDAT were studied immunocytochemically using anti-somatostatin (SST) antibody. Fifty micrometer sections of immersion fixed brains (autopsy delay: 10-16 hours) were cut and then stored in 0.1 M tris-HCI buffer (pH7.4) until the immunocytochemical study. Lmmunostatinings were performed according to Sternberger's peroxidase-antiperoxidase (PAP) technique. The primary antiserum was rabbit antiserum to synthetic somatostatin (Cambridge Research Biochemicals). Diluted to 1: 1.000. The secondary antiserum was goat anti-rabbit IgG (Sternbeger-Meyer) in dilutions of 1: 400 to 500. Controls followed complete staining protocol. But without incubation in the specific antibody. SST-immunoreactive (IR) neurons in aged normal brains were distributed in all layers of cortices. These cells were multipolar, bitufted, or wramidal in shape. The changes of SST-IR neurons were profound in frontal, parietal, and temporal cortices of SDAT brains, but were absent in the Cal of hippocampus. Neuritic plaque-like structure formation was the most common changes seen in the cortices, especially in the temporal cortex. The morphology of altered SST-IR neuronal elements were similar to that of the neuritic plaques demonstrated by the Bielshowsky's silver impregnation method. Apparently intact SST-IR neurons were also found in SDAT brains, thus giving rise to the speculation that these neurons may have unusual survival and reorganization potential. Unexpectedly, there were no degenerative changes of SST-IR neurons in CA! region of SDAT hippocampus. These results strongly suggest that among SST-IR neurons only neocortical short association neurons are affected in the neuronal degenerative changes of SDAT.

MeSH Terms

Alzheimer Disease*
Brain
Goats
Hippocampus
Immersion
Immunoglobulin G
Neurons*
Plaque, Amyloid
Rabeprazole
Silver
Somatostatin
Immunoglobulin G
Silver
Somatostatin