MULTISCALE DETECTION AND ANALYSIS OF THE SENILE PLAQUES OF ALZHEIMERS-DISEASE

Senile plaques (SP) are one of the characteristic neuropathologic lesi ons of Alzheimer's Disease (AD), and studies of SP cortical distributi on, density (number of SP/mm(2)), and morphology are expected to lead to new information about the mechanism and pathogenesis of AD, We desc ribe a digital image analysis procedure to detect SP, and to measure S P size, shape, and total fractional area in digital micrographs of sil ver-stained tissue sections, This histology is nonspecific so the prog ram detects all the significant stained objects and a classifier sorts the SP from other tissue elements. SP vary greatly in size and form, and detection is based on multiscale template correlation, Three indep endent comparisons of computed versus expert-determined SP densities p roduced correlation coefficients greater than 0.8. The program found 9 4000 SP in 2800 digital images of tissue sections from 42 postmortem c ases including healthy aged controls and severely demented subjects.