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Failed Compensatory Dendritic Growth as a Pathophysiological Process in Alzheimer's Disease

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 September 2015

Dorothy G. Flood  and
Paul D. Coleman
Dorothy G. Flood*
Affiliation:
Department of Neurology and the Department of Neurobiology and Anatomy, University of Rochester Medical Center, Rochester, New York
Paul D. Coleman
Affiliation:
Department of Neurology and the Department of Neurobiology and Anatomy, University of Rochester Medical Center, Rochester, New York
*
Department of Neurology, Box 673, University of Rochester Medical Center, Rochester, New York U.S.A. 14642
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Abstract:

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In normal human aging the remaining neurons of two areas of the hippocampal region have been found to compensate for age-related neuronal loss by proliferating new dendrites. In Alzheimer's disease (AD) the layer II pyramidal neurons of the parahippocampal gyrus fail to show this compensatory response, in spite of a probable, exaggerated disease-related loss of neurons. In AD the dentate gyrus granule cells of the hippocampus also show a reduced amount of the compensatory response. This failure of the AD brain to show the normal compensatory plastic response, seen in normal aging as dendritic growth, may be viewed as one of the pathophysiological processes of the disease.

Type
Cellular Clues to Pathogenesis
Information
Canadian Journal of Neurological Sciences , Volume 13 , Issue S4 , November 1986 , pp. 475 - 479
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Neurological Sciences Federation 1986

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