Neuropathological diseases

J.S. Bryans etal, US Patent 6,635,673 (October 21, 2003) Assignee Warner-Lambert Company Utility Treatment of Neuropathological Diseases... 

Harper SQ, Staber PD, He X et al (2005) RNA interference improves motor and neuropathological abnormalities in a Huntington s disease mouse model. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 102(16) 5 820-5 825... 

Budka H (1989) Human immunodeficiency virus (HlV)-induced disease of the central nervous system pathology and implications for pathogenesis. Acta Neuropathol 77(3) 225-236 Budka H (1991) Neuropathology of human immunodeficiency vims infection. Brain Pathol 1(3) 163-175... 

Fearnley, J and Lees, AJ (1991) Parkinson s disease neuropathology. Brain 114 2283-2301. 

Schizophrenia is not a neurodegenerative disease but there is some general neuropathology. There is also evidence for a genetic influence. In monozygotic twins with... 

Despite its characteristic symptoms and even after the exclusion of other established causes, AzD can only be reliably diagnosed by neuropathology and microscopic examination of the brain. Indeed that is how it came by its name. In 1907, a German physician, Alois Alzheimer, described two distinct post-mortem changes in the brain of a woman patient who had died with an unusual mental illness. These were the now characteristically accepted markers of the disease, namely senile plaques and neurofibrillary tangles (Fig. 18.1). 

Takeuchi T. 1977. Neuropathology of Minimata disease in Kumamoto especially at the chronic stage. In Roizin L, Shiraki H, Grcevic N, editors, Neurotoxicology. New York Raven Press. 

DeArmond SJ, Ironside JW. Neuropathology of prion diseases. In Prusiner SB, ed. Prion Biology and Diseases. Vol. 38. Cold Spring Harbor, NY Cold Spring Harbor Press, 1999 585-652. 

Johnston-Wilson NLet al. Disease-specific alterations in frontal cortex brain proteins in schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and major depressive disorder. The Stanley Neuropathology Consortium. Mol Psychiatry 2000 5 142-149. 

FIGURE 38-1 Coronal slice of brain from a patient who died with MS. Demyelinated plaques are clearly visible in white matter (large arrows). Small plaques are also observed at the boundaries between gray and white matter (small arrows). (Reproduced with permission from Raine, C. S. The neuropathology of myelin diseases. In P. Morell (ed.) Myelin. New York Plenum Press, 1984, ch. 8.)... 

Bertram, L. and Tanzi, R. Genetics of Alzheimer s disease. In D. Dickson (ed.), Neurodegeneration- The Molecular Pathology of Dementia and Movement Disorders. Basel ISN Neuropathology Press, 2003, pp. 40-46. 

On the one hand, the biochemical study of the neuro-pathological lesions led to the identification of their main molecular components. On the other hand, the study of rare, familial forms of Alzheimer s disease, frontotemporal dementia and Parkinson s disease led to the identification of gene defects that cause inherited variants of the different diseases. Remarkably, in these cases, the defective genes have been found to encode or increase the expression of the main components of the neuropathological lesions. It has therefore been established that the basis of the familial forms of these diseases is a toxic property conferred by mutations in the proteins that make up the filamentous lesions. A corollary of this insight is that a similar toxic property may also underlie the much more common, sporadic forms of the diseases. 

The development of the neurofibrillary pathology is not random. It follows a stereotyped pattern with regard to affected nerve cell types, cellular layers and brain regions, with little inter-individual variation. This has been used to define six neuropathological stages of Alzheimer s disease [28]. The very first nerve cells in the brain to develop... 

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