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Morphometric analysis of the prefrontal cortex in Huntington's disease

Departments of Developmental Neurobiology (Dr. Sotrel), Eunice K. Shriver Center for Mental Retardation, Waltham, MA, and Pathology (Dr. Sotrel), Beth Israel Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA; Mailman Research Center (Drs. Paskevich and Bird), McLean Hospital, Belmont, MA, and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA; Department of Neurology (Drs. Kiely and Myers), Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, MA; and Department of Neurology (Dr. Williams), Billings Clinic, Billings, MT, and University of Washington, Seattle, WA.

We performed a morphometric analysis of cresyl violet-stained sections from the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex of 81 patients with Huntington's disease (HD) (grades 2, 3, and 4) and 23 age-matched normal controls. We counted large pyramidal neurons, small neurons, astrocytes, oligodendroglia, and microglia under the guidance of a specifically predefined set of morphologic criteria for each cell type and recorded the thickness of each cortical layer. Our results demonstrate a selective and progressive loss of a subset of the large pyramidal neurons in cortical layers III, V, and VI of HD patients, and a decrease in the thickness of the respective cortical laminae. A genetically determined, cell-autonomous degeneration of cortical neurons could constitute the primary pathologic process. However, the loss of only a fraction of pyramidal cells suggests a parallel, or an alternative, possibility of a retrograde degeneration of cortical neurons that project solely, or principally, to the site of primary degeneration in caudate nuclei.

Address correspondence and reprint requests to Dr. Ana Sotrel, Eunice K. Shriver Center for Mental Retardation, 200 Trapelo Road, Waltham, MA 02254.

Supported by the National Institute of Neurological and Communicative Disorders and Stroke grant NS 23973-02 and by the National Institute of Mental Health—National Institute of Neurological and Communicative Disorders and Stroke grant 31862 (Brain Bank).

Received October 1, 1990. Accepted for publication in final form December 27, 1990.

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