Morphological Studies on the Aging of the Spinal Cord

A Quantitative Study of Lipofuscin Using Image Analyzer

Abstract

The report describes a quantitative study of lipofuscin of the spinal cord related to changes with using the image analyzed and score method. Spinal cords used in the study were obtained from 123 autopsied cases (64 males, 59 females: 0-97 years of age). All of the case had no spinal cord signs clinically. Quantitative analysis of lipofuscin was made on different function of the sponal cord neurons such as anterior horn neurons, dorsal nuclei, intermediolateral cells and Onufrowicz nuclei, Betz giant cells, cervical and sacral anterior horn neurons were studied for motor neurons' analysis. As for the aging central nervous system the relationship between the lipofuscin and the corpora amylacea, senile plaque, Alzheimer neurofibrillary tangles were studied. Further the report was based on the comparison of the control group and the degenerative disease such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) olivopontocerebellar atrophy (OPCA), and progerssive muscular dystrophy of Duchenne type (PMD).
Results: 1. The amout of lipofuscin incresed lineary with the aging. It increases in anterior horn neurons most, followed by Onufrowicz nuclei, and intermediolateral nuclei. There was no difference between both sexes.
2. The amout of lipofuscin in motor neurons at different levels of the spinal cord increases in sacral anterior horn neurons most, followed by cervical anterior horn neurons, and Betz giant cells.
3. There is no relationship between the amount of lipofuscin and the amount of corpora anylacea in sacral spinal cord.
4. Senile plaques were not detected in the spinal cords examined, but those in the cerebral cortex were studied. Much lipofuscin was found in the Betz giant cells, which showed no relationship with the lipofuscin of the sacral anterior horn neurons.
5. The Alzheimer neurofibrillary tangles were found in the 3 cases of the aged (89, 85, 81 year old females).
6. The amout of lipofuscin of the sacral anterior horn neurons were difinitely larger in 9 cases of the 10 cases of ALS and 2 cases of OPCA than one in the control, whereas no difference was found in 5 cases of PMD.
This study clearly demonstrates that the amount of lipofuscin increases linerly with the aging, and is not correlated with the amount of corpora amylacea and senile plaque. It suggested that the degenerative disease such as ALS and OPCA acelerates the aging processes of neurons.