REGIONAL QUANTITATIVE-ANALYSIS OF TAU-POSITIVE NEURONS IN PROGRESSIVESUPRANUCLEAR PALSY - COMPARISON WITH ALZHEIMERS-DISEASE

In patients with progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP), various tau-pos itive abnormal structures are found in the cerebral cortex as well as in the subcortical nuclei. Similar tau-positive abnormalities are also identified in cortico-basal degeneration (CBD). It is therefore quest ionable as to whether PSP can be neuropathologically differentiated fr om CBD. It also remains unclear whether neurofibrillary tangles (NFT) in the cerebral cortex of PSP patients consist of PSP-NFT or concomita nt Alzheimer's disease (AD)-NFT, although there have been some reports suggesting that PSP- and AD-NFT are different with respect to distrib ution pattern and biochemical character. In this study, a regional qua ntitative analysis of the distribution and antigenicity of tau-positiv e neurons (TPN) was performed in PSP cases and compared with that in A D cases. TPN consisted of NFT with tangle-formation and pretangle neur ons (PN) without tangle-formation. In addition, NFT were subdivided in to mature and immature NFT according to the difference of staining pro perties with anti-tau-related antibodies. The comparison of the TPN of the PSP cases with those of the AD cases revealed that the degree of tangle-formation in the TPN of AD was similar in all of the examined r egions, while that in the TPN of PSP varied according to the region an d case. Moreover, the NFT in the PSP and AD cases had different distri butions according to the cortical layer and subnucleus, even in the co mmon predilection sites of PSP and AD, suggesting that NFT in these re gions of the PSP cases consist mainly of PSP-NFT. In addition, the PSP cases could be divided into two groups according to the difference of the tangle-formation of TPN; group I with typical PSP pathology and g roup II with atypical PSP pathology similar to CBD. This suggests that there is a continuity between PSP and CBD with respect to the distrib ution and antigenicity of TPN. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science BN. All right s reserved.