Dendritic Alterations of the Pyramidal Cell of Reil’s Insula in Alzheimer’s disease

What is it about?

Alzheimer's disease is an insidiously progressive severe presenile and senile dementia, involving a number of cellular and biochemical mechanisms. It is characterized by cognitive decline affecting memory primarily, associated frequently with behavioral and mood disorders, which increasingly appear as the disease advances. Despite the strong clinical rationale and many laboratory hints, the insula may be an important target of Alzheimer's disease, neuropathologic alterations of Reil's insula have not been described extensively In the present study, we attempt to describe the morphometric and morphological changes of the neurons of insula in Alzheimer's disease in comparison to normal ageing, senile plaque deposition and neurofibrillary degeneration using the silver impregnation technique. Each one of the selected cells was traced using the Neuromantic application and the tracing was quantitatively analyzed with Image J program based on Sholl analysis method of concentric circles. Statistical analysis was based on the Student’s test on the basis of 360 cells in SPSS v.17.0 and significance was taken as p.

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Why is it important?

The morphological and morphometric estimation of pyramidal neurons from Reil’s insula in Alzheimer’s disease brains revealed a severe reduction of total dendritic length, mainly correlated to loss of distal dendritic branches, as well changes regarding neuronal orientation and cytoskeletal integrity. These changes lead to the essential decrease of the synaptic contacts and impairment of the pyramidal-interneuronal connectivity, as well as with other cortical and subcortical areas and may be related to impairment of regulatory mechanisms of insular cortex, ranging from visceral control and sensation to covert judgments regarding inner well-being.

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