Morphological and quantitative analysis of cerebellar cortical cells in Alzheimer's disease

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a neurodegenerative amyloid disease, although a great deal of research has been done, its aetiology is still unknown. In Khachaturian's hypothesis on the involvement of calcium in the aetiology of Alzheimer's disease, particular attention is paid to the disorder of calcium metabolism. Ludo van Bogaert, describing AD, has drawn attention to the presence of a multi-system damage to the brain and described four forms of the disease, including two cerebellar types: cerebellar-pyramidal and cerebellar. The aim of our study was to analyze the expression of calcium-binding proteins (calbindin, calretinin, parvalbumin) in cortical neurons of the cerebellum in patients diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease (experimental group) and in a control group (patients without Alzheimer's disease). We performed the quantitative analysis of the density of Purkinje cells and Bergmann glial cells in the cerebellar cortex. We observed weak immunoreaction with a calretinin antibody in Lugaro cells, and with parvalbumin in Purkinje cells in the experimental group. A weaker expression of calcium-binding proteins in the experimental group may indicate the disturbance of the transport and buffering of intracellular Ca(2+) levels. The quantitative analysis showed that the density of Bergmann glial cells was higher in the experimental group. Our study suggests the disturbance of calcium metabolism in Alzheimer's disease.