[The entorhinal cortex (hippocampal formation) in aging and Alzheimer's disease. Neuroanatomical interpretation]

This paper deals with the neuronal changes shown by the entorhinal cortex in aging (30 cases) and in Alzheimer's disease (17 cases). In both instances, changes show a neuronal loss (measured as an index of cortical atrophy). The entorhinal cortex more closely related to polymodal association cortex hardly shows any variation with age, while Alzheimer cases present very intense neuronal loss. This pattern is interpreted taking into account the present knowledge about the connectivity of the entorhinal cortex and the remainder of the hippocampal formation and their role in memory processing.