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Regionally specific age-dependent decline in alpha 2-adrenoceptors: an autoradiographic study in human brain
J Pascual1, C del Arco, A M González
1Department of Physiology and Pharmacology, University Hospital Marqués de Valdecilla, University of Cantabria, Santander (Spain).
Abstract:
The effect of sex, postmortem delay and aging on alpha 2-adrenoceptor binding was studied in tissue sections from several representative regions of the human brain from 21 subjects using [3H]UK-14304 as a ligand. Sex and postmortem delay did not influence the density of alpha 2-receptors. Aging resulted in clear decreases in most forebrain areas examined (n. basalis greater than basal ganglia greater than hypothalamus greater than fronto-temporal cortex greater than hippocampus greater than visual cortex), whereas alpha 2-receptors did not significantly change with age in the amygdala and several infratentorial areas. We conclude that age-related, regionally specific decreases in the density of alpha 2-receptors occur in the human brain. The implications of these findings for age-dependent noradrenergic degeneration are discussed.