Thalamic nuclei in Alzheimer disease: evidence against the cholinergic hypothesis of plaque formation

Recent studies provide evidence for a significant cholinergic projection from the nucleus basalis of Meynert (NbM) to the reticular and mediodorsal thalamic nuclei. We examined the incidence and distribution of plaques in the thalamus in order to determine whether in Alzheimer's disease degenerating cholinergic processes from the NbM induce the emergence of plaques according to the cholinergic hypothesis. The present study shows that degeneration of NbM neurons does not induce plaques in the thalamic nuclei it innervates, and that plaques appear more frequently in other thalamic nuclei that do not receive projections from the NbM.