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Preservation of Neuronal Number Despite Age-Related Cortical Brain Atrophy In Elderly Subjects Without Alzheimer Disease
Journal article   Open access   Peer reviewed

Preservation of Neuronal Number Despite Age-Related Cortical Brain Atrophy In Elderly Subjects Without Alzheimer Disease

Stefanie H Freeman, Ruth Kandel, Luis Cruz, Anete Rozkalne, Kathy Newell, Matthew P Frosch, E. Tessa Hedley-Whyte, Joseph J Locascio, Lewis Lipsitz and Bradley T Hyman
Journal of neuropathology and experimental neurology, v 67(12), pp 1205-1212
Dec 2008
PMID: 19018241
url
https://doi.org/10.1097/NEN.0b013e31818fc72fView
Published, Version of Record (VoR) Open

Abstract

Aging Cerebral cortex Stereology Neurons
Cerebral volume loss has long been associated with normal aging but whether this is due to aging itself or to age-related diseases including incipient Alzheimer disease (AD) is uncertain. To understand the changes that occur in the aging brain, we examined the cerebral cortex of 27 normal individuals ranging in age from 56 to 103 years. None fulfilled the criteria for the neuropathological diagnosis of AD or other neurodegenerative disease. Seventeen of the elderly participants had cognitive testing an average of 6.7 months prior to death. We used quantitative approaches to analyze cortical thickness, neuronal number, and density. Frontal and temporal neocortical regions had clear evidence of cortical thinning with age but total neuronal numbers in frontal and temporal neocortical regions remained relatively constant over a 50-year age range. These data suggest that loss of neuronal and dendritic architecture, rather than loss of neurons, underlies neocortical volume loss with increasing age in the absence of AD.

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Collaboration types
Domestic collaboration
Web of Science research areas
Clinical Neurology
Neurosciences
Pathology
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