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Published on: June 3, 2020
[An autopsy case of argyrophilic grain dementia with abundant neurofibrillary tangles]
Kenichi Oshima1, Kuniaki Tsuchiya, Shuji Iritani
1Department of Psychiatry, Tokyo Metropolitan Matsuzawa Hospital, Department of Psychogeriatrics, Tokyo Institute of Psychiatry, Tokyo, Japan.
Abstract:
We reported an autopsy case of "senile dementia" showing neuropathologically abundant neurofibrillary tangles(NFT) and argyrophilic grains(AG) without senile plaques. A Japanese woman developed memory disturbance when she was 70 years old. The patient was hospitalized at age 80 and a cranial CT scan revealed bilateral mild atrophy of the temporal lobes and mild enlargement of the lateral ventricle, especially in the inferior horn. She died at the age of 80. Autopsy showed that her brain weighted 1220 g. Numerous NFT were found in the entorhinal (trans-entorhinal) region, subiculm, CA1-CA4, dentate gyrus, amygdala, nucleus basalis of Meynert, substantia nigra, and locus coeruleus. Furthermore, numerous AG were seen in the temporal lobe(T3, T4), amygdala, prominently in the basolateral nuclei. Obvious neuronal loss with gliosis was noted in the temporal lobes, including the hipocampal regions. Few senile plaques was detected in temporal lobe(T4). Sarkosyl-insoluble tau extracted from the temporal lobe consisted predominantly of four-repeat tau isoforms. To our knowledge, this is the first report of argyrophilic grain dementia complicated with tangle only dementia.
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