ANALYSIS OF THE BRAIN TISSUES FROM A PATIENT WITH ALZHEIMER'S DISEASE AND EFFECTS OF CHELATING TREATMENT
Alzheimer's, Parkinson's disease and ALS are among major neurodegenerative diseases. The cause of neurodegeneration is unknown, but there are indications that excessive accumulation of essential elements, and sometimes, incorporation of toxic foreign elements in neurons aggravate neurodegeneration. During the past decade, many researchers investigated the causative factors in degenerative diseases to specify genetic or environmental factor. PIXE analysis has been used for these studies because of the sample preparation is easy and detection limit is very low. However, the concentration of matrix elements and foreign elements are extremely low and difficult to detect and to quantify. In this study, specimens from patients with Alzheimer's disease with no chemical treatment, and those with chelating were analyzed. In all analyzed specimens, Na , Al , Si , P , S , Cl , Ca , Ti , V , Cr , Fe and Cu were detected. Each specimen in this study consisted of cerebral cortex and substantia alba. From these experiments we can observe a clear tendency that the accumulation of the metal elements are different depending on the constituent tissues, and the method of sample preparation has a dominant role in the measurement results.