Abstract
A burgeoning number of studies are demonstrating aluminium in human brain tissue. While research has both quantified and imaged aluminium in human brain tissue in neurodegenerative and neurodevelopmental disease there are few similar data for brain tissue from non-neurologically impaired donors. We have used microwave assisted acid digestion and transversely heated graphite furnace atomic absorption spectrometry to measure aluminium in twenty brains from donors without recognisable neurodegenerative disease. The aluminium content of 191 tissue samples was invariably low with over 80% of tissues having an aluminium content below 1.0 μg/g dry weight of tissue. The data for these control tissues were compared with data (measured using identical procedures) for sporadic Alzheimer’s disease, familial Alzheimer’s disease, autism spectrum disorder and multiple sclerosis. Detailed statistical analyses showed that aluminium was significantly increased in each of these disease groups compared to control tissues. We have confirmed previous conclusions that the aluminium content of brain tissue in Alzheimer’s disease, autism spectrum disorder and multiple sclerosis is significantly elevated. Further research is required to understand the role played by high levels of aluminium in the aetiology of human neurodegenerative and neurodevelopmental disease.
Highlights
Human exposure to aluminium is burgeoning and its entry into and presence within the human body is inevitable[1,2,3]
There were no statistically significant differences between aluminium content and age (p-value = 0.7656) or gender (p-value = 0.4005) and even though the cerebellum had the lowest content of aluminium, there were no statistically significant differences between any of the five brain regions (p-value = 0.2488; Table 2; Fig. 1)
We present the first comprehensive data set for the aluminium content of brain tissue in donors without a diagnosis of neurodegenerative disease
Summary
Human exposure to aluminium is burgeoning and its entry into and presence within the human body is inevitable[1,2,3]. A number of recent studies have provided data on aluminium content in brain tissue in Alzheimer’s disease[11], multiple sclerosis[12] and autism[13]. The quantitative data, supported by aluminium-specific imaging, are invariably reported as being high, higher than expected. Data on the latter, true control data are extremely rare. Brain banks have themselves struggled with the concept of what constitutes a true control[14] We asked one such brain bank to identify a set of donor brain tissues that could act as a control for brains affected and diagnosed with a neurodegenerative disease. We have compared these data with data, measured under identical conditions, for donors having died with diagnoses of Alzheimer’s disease, multiple sclerosis and autism
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
