MICROPROBE PIXE ANALYSIS OF ALUMINUM IN THE BRAINS OF PATIENTS WITH ALZHEIMERS-DISEASE

To investigate the cause of Alzheimer's disease (senile dementia), we examined aluminium (Al) in the rat liver, and in the brains (hippocamp us) of Alzheimer's disease patients using heavy ion (5 MeV Si3+) micro probe and proton (2 MeV) microprobe PIXE analysis. Heavy ion microprob es (3 MeV Si2+) have several time's higher sensitivity for Al detectio n than 2 MeV proton microprobes. (1) In the rat liver, Al was detected in the cell nuclei, where phosphorus (P) was most densely distributed . (2) We also demonstrated Al in the cell nuclei isolated from Alzheim er's disease brains using heavy ion (5 MeV Si3+) microprobes. Al spect ra were detected using 2 MeV proton microprobes in the isolated brain cell nuclei. Al could not be observed in areas where P was present in relatively small amounts, or was absent, Our results indicate that Alz heimer's disease is caused by irreversible accumulation of Al in the n uclei of brain cells.