Abstract
The chapter reviews the pattern of peptidergic changes in Alzheimer's disease is and compares it with changes during normal aging. Many peptides have been measured in the Alzheimer's disease brain tissue and age-matched control material. Reduced cortical levels of somatostatin (SOM) have been reported consistently, while reports of reductions in other neuropeptide systems are not consistent. Vasopressin (VP) is reported to be reduced in a number of extrahypothalamic brain regions, although statistical significance is reached only in the globus pallidus. In the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF), SOM and oxytocin (OXT) have been reported to be reduced in Alzheimer's disease. It is argued, however, that the mere determination of peptide concentrations in brain areas is not sufficient to investigate age-related or disease-related changes in peptidergic systems because the observed changes cannot be interpreted in functional terms. A different approach towards the elucidation of peptidergic changes during aging and Alzheimer's disease is the assessment of the parameters that indicate changes in cell function—that is, cell size or nucleolar size—in immunocytochemically identified peptidergic neurons. The application of such procedures to VP and OXT neurons in the human supraoptic nuclei and paraventricular nuclei has revealed increased neurosecretory activity of VP, but not of OXT cells in senescence and Alzheimer's disease.
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