PATHOLOGY OF SENILE BRAINS

Abstract

Although the hippocampus has long been a favorable site for the study of senile changes in the brain,¹this region has never been fully explored. The present communication is devoted to observations of a qualitative nature, made with the use of a method hitherto not employed for this purpose,²on the hippocampal formation in senile brains. In the investigation of senile changes in the brain, the silver impregnations have furnished the principal histologic technic. The Bielschowsky method, or one of its modifications, designed for the exhibition of axis-cylinders and endoneurofibrils, has been chiefly employed. The latter structures, as shown in a previous paper,²are the least argyrophilic in the nervous system and frequently require most meticulous technic for their demonstration. On the other hand, the senile plaques and Alzheimer strands are strongly argyrophilic. It is of interest that these pathologic structures are partly masked when very careful