LOBAR ATROPHY WITH DENSE-CORE (BRAIN-STEM TYPE) LEWY BODIES IN A PATIENT WITH DEMENTIA

A 62-year-old man presented with memory impairment progressing over 6 years to dementia with near mutism and was diagnosed as having Alzheimer's disease. At autopsy his brain showed lobar atrophy suggestive of Pick's disease and there were spherical intracytoplasmic neuronal inclusions in the fascia dentata, hippocampal pyramidal cell layer, and temporal cortex. Unlike Pick bodies, however, the inclusions were eosinophilic with H&E stains, non-argyrophilic, and failed to react immunohistochemically with antibodies to paired helical filaments or Alz-50. They did label with antibodies to ubiquitin, however, and electron microscopy disclosed dense-cored granular structures with thin filamentous coronas which resembled brain stem-type Lewy bodies. The substantia nigra and locus coeruleus were not affected. © 1990 Springer-Verlag.