Cerebral atrophy in Parkinson syndrome

Review of 100 autopsy cases of Parkinson disease (PD), 100 age and sex matched controls, 16 cases of senile Parkinson (sP), 85 cases of senile dementia of Alzheimer type (SDAT) and 55 cases of Alzheimer disease (AD) showed that the average brain weight in PD was not significantly less than in controls but was much higher than in sP and SDAT. PD shows only slight but insignificant increase of cortical neuronal loss and Alzheimer lesions (AL) as compared to controls, while in PD the AL are significantly less severe than in sP, SDAT and AD. There is no increased simultaneous occurrence of PD and AD. Several types of PD are separated: PD with dementia with a) subcortical PD lesions combined with AD or severe AL, b) severe AL with little nigral damage; c) severe AL with cortical Lewy bodies; PD without dementia with no or little AL. Demented PD patients with severe AL are older than non-demented ones without AL. In general, there is good correlation between the degree of dementia and the severity of AL in both PD and controls.