NEUROPATHOLOGICAL CHANGES IN THE PDAPP TRANSGENIC MOUSE MODEL OF ALZHEIMER'S DISEASE

Alzheimer's disease (ad) is a uniquely human disorder. although the pathogenesis of adis not fully understood, growing evidence indicates that the deposition of beta-amyloid (a~) and thelocal reactions of various cell types to this protein play major roles in the developn1ent of the disease. inthe present study transgenic mice expressing mutant amyloid precursor protein (app) has been used.these mice exhibit selective neuronal death in the brain regions that are most affected in ad,suggesting that amyloid plaque fonnation is directly involved in ad neurons loss. brains from 12transgenic anin1als and 12 age-matched non transgenic littennate controls (1 and 2 years old) wereexamined histopathologically. one year old transgenic animals (n=6) exhibit deposits of human a~ inthe hippocampus, corpus callosun1 and cerebral cortex. by 2 years of age, a great number of diffuse andmature plaques were present in the cortex and hippocampus, and subcortical regions like thalamus andstriatum. another major finding was reduction of cholinergic cells in the medial septum, striatum anddiagonal band of broca. the present data are consistent with the hypothesis that the neuropathologybegins in the cerebral cortex and hippocampus before spreading in a retrograde fashion to subcorticalregions