Familial Alzheimer’s disease and cortical lewy bodies: Is there a genetic susceptibility factor?

Carol F. Lippa, Thomas W. Smith, Linda Nee, Yves Robtiaille, Barbara Crain, Dennis Dickson, D. Pulaski-Salo, Daniel A. Pollen

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

15 Scopus citations

Abstract

The reason for the occurrence of Lewy body disease (LBD) in Alzheimer's disease (AD) patients in unknown. If brains from etiologically different AD groups differ in their tendency to develop cortical Lewy bodies, the concurrence of LBD in AD patients may be a manifestation of the AD process in specific AD subsets. To address this issue, we counted cortical Lewy bodies in AD patients with genetic abnormalities on chromosome 14 (n = 19), and chromosome 21 (n = 3), sporadic AD (n = 27), Down's syndrome (n = 1) and control (n = 26) patients. Cortical Lewy bodies were occasionally present in AD patients with long-duration disease in most of the above AD subgroups, but were not present in any of our age-matched control cases. We suggest that cortical Lewy body formation may be an intrinsic part of the late pathologic changes of AD regardless of etiology and that it is not specific to any of the AD subtypes studied.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)191-194
Number of pages4
JournalDementia and geriatric cognitive disorders
Volume6
Issue number4
DOIs
StatePublished - 1995

Keywords

  • Alzheimer’s disease
  • Dementia
  • Lewy body disease

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Geriatrics and Gerontology
  • Cognitive Neuroscience
  • Psychiatry and Mental health

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