Brain Research, 333 (1985) 139-142 139 Elsevier BRE 20657 Short Communications Catecholamine topochemistry in human basal ganglia. Comparison between normal and Alzheimer brains P. NYBERG l , R. ADOLFSSON2, J. A. HARDY 1, A. NORDBERG 4, P. WESTER 1and B. WINBLAD 3 Departments of l pathology, 2psychiatry and 3Geriatric Medicine, University of Umed, and 4Department of Pharmacology, University of Uppsala (Sweden) (Accepted October 23rd, 1984) Key words: dopamine - - noradrenaline - - basal ganglia - - Alzheimer's disease Analysis of catecholamine levels in postmortem human control and Alzheimer brains revealed lower mean concentrations of nor- adrenaline, but not dopamine, in nucleus caudatus, putamen and globus pallidus, but not in hippocampus, of the Alzheimer brains. Generally, noradrenaline levels were higher in the more posterior parts of nucleus caudatus and putamen in the control brains, where- as such gradients were absent in the Alzheimer brains. Dementia may be defined as a progressive deterio- ration of intellectual and emotional functions, the commonest causes being the primary degenerative disorders AD and SDAT 19. AD/SDAT is character- ized histopathologically by the presence of numerous senile plaques and neurofibrillary tangles throughout cortical grey matter6,19. Neurochemically, reductions of brain choline acetyltransferase and acetylcho- lineesterase have been noted 7ASA7. Results regarding reductions of catecholaminergic transmitters in AD/SDAT are less extensive, but lower mean con- centrations of DA and NA have been observed in some brain areas1, 9. The aim of the present study was to map the anterior to posterior distribution of DA and NA in nucleus caudatus, putamen, globus palli- dus and hippocampus from post-mortem human con- trol brains and AD/SDAT brains. In this study, brains from six control patients with- out neurological or psychiatric disorder and four pa- tients with clinically and histopathologically verified AD/SDAT were included. The mean age and stand- ard deviation of the controls was 64.7 _+ 11.8 years (range: 44-78) and for the AD/SDAT patients 70.8 + 7.0 years. Death-autopsy intervals for the controls and the AD/SDAT group were 19.8 + 13.5 h _+ 14.9 and 29.8 + 14.9 h, respectively. De- tailed data on the AD/SDAT patients are given in Table I. Sections from the control brains revealed scarce plaques in only one of the cases (only five con- trol cases were examined histopathologically). The causes of death for the controls were myocardial in- farction (four cases) and ruptured aortic aneurysm (two cases). Morphine had been given terminally to all of the control patients. At autopsy, a central block containing the subcortical grey matter and the intact left hippocampus was wrapped in air-tight plastic and immediately frozen. The sectioning procedure, per- formed in the frozen state, yielded coronal slices 3 mm in thickness 14. Samples were removed using a scalpel and returned to the freezer. The basal ganglia samples were taken from the right hemisphere and the hippocampal samples from the left hemisphere. Correspondence: P. Nyberg, Department of Pathology, University of Umeh, S-901 85 Umeh, Sweden.