A COMPARATIVE STUDY IN ALZHEIMER'S AND NORMAL BRAINS OF TRACE ELEMENT DISTRIBUTION USING PIXE AND INA ANALYSES AND GLUCOSE METABOLISM BY POSITRON EMISSION TOMOGRAPHY

摘要

Over the last century in which Alzheimer's disease (AD) has been known, there has been a comprehensive effort to discover a prevention or cure for this debilitating disease. As AD leads to a loss in intellectual functioning caused by the loss of certain neurotransmitters much literature has looked into how these changes affect trace element compositions in the brain. Various trace elements have been implicated in the cause or effect of AD such as, Al, Cd, Hg and Pb as neurotoxins and Cu, Zn and Mn for their role in the superoxide dimutase antioxidants. A review of literature from past trace element analysis shows huge discrepancies between authors which in the main is due to the authors not differentiating between different lobes, sex and age. In the work presented here a number of factors were examined to see whether each component would affect trace element concentrations and if these should be taken into consideration in future research.