Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
Pivot Concepts:   Target Concepts:
Query: EC:3.1.1.7 (acetylcholinesterase)
 28,390 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Acetylcholinesterase and butyrylcholinesterase activities in cerebrospinal fluid were measured in 17 patients with Alzheimer's disease and 6 control patients, as potential clinical measures of impaired cholinergic neurotransmission in Alzheimer's disease. The activity of butyrylcholinesterase was decreased in patients with Alzheimer's disease compared to that observed in control patients, but there was overlap between values in the 2 groups. Low butyrylcholinesterase activity was correlated with severity of dementia, memory impairment, and language disorder. Acetylcholinesterase activity was significantly correlated with visual contrast sensitivity, but not with dementia severity, and did not differentiate patients with Alzheimer's disease from control cases. These results suggest that cholinesterases in cerebrospinal fluid are related to brain cholinesterases, and indicate that the activities of acetylcholinesterase and butyrylcholinesterase should be distinguished in studies of cerebrospinal fluid.
 ...
PMID:Cholinesterases in cerebrospinal fluid. Correlations with clinical measures in Alzheimer's disease. 371 29

A biochemical investigation of 21 brains from patients with dementia of Alzheimer type (AD/SDAT) and 22 brains from controls was made. In the normal brains 5-hydroxytryptamine (5-HT), noradrenaline (NA) and dopamine (DA) were reduced with age while their metabolites were not reduced. In the brains from the Alzheimer patients the examination of gray matter (caudate nucleus and hippocampus) showed a significant reduced activity of choline-acetyl transferase (CAT) and a reduction of acetylcholinesterase (AChE) that bordered significance in the hippocampus. In the brains from the Alzheimer patients a disturbance was found in the 5-HT system in the form of reduced levels of 5-HT and 5-hydroxyindolacetic acid (5-HIAA). The catecholamine systems were also disturbed but to a less extent. In the 5-HT and DA systems the active amines as well as the metabolites were reduced in the brains from patients with AD/SDAT indicating not only a possible neuronal loss but also an incapacity of the remaining neurons to compensate for the loss by an increased turnover. The lipid content was slightly reduced in gray matter of the demented brains. In white matter there was a more severe reduction of the lipids and in this tissue also the cerebrosides and sulfatides were reduced. It is concluded that in brains from patients with AD/SDAT there are multiple biochemical deficits in gray as well as in white matter. The changes in white matter may be of pathogenetic importance in subgroups of AD/SDAT.
 ...
PMID:Multiple biochemical deficits in both gray and white matter of Alzheimer brains. 379 85

Alzheimer patients were treated with lecithin and gradually increasing doses of oral physostigmine during a drug trial to determine if these compounds would improve memory. Memory was measured using a selective reminding task. Of 16 patients, 10 showed improvement in total recall, retrieval from long-term storage and a decrease in intrusions. The optimal dose was 2.0 mg or 2.5 mg of physostigmine per dose for most patients. During a replication study, all 10 patients again responded. During long-term (4 to 20 months) treatment of five patients, most demonstrated continued drug response initially but then lost responsiveness to physostigmine and their dementia progressed. Physostigmine treatment appeared to improve memory with or without concomitant lecithin therapy. However, progressive dementia ensued despite physostigmine therapy. The degree of memory improvement correlated with increasing cerebrospinal fluid cholinesterase inhibition suggesting that memory improvement is associated with entry of physostigmine into the brain.
 ...
PMID:Acute and chronic effects of oral physostigmine and lecithin in Alzheimer's disease. 379 88

We measured acetylcholinesterase (AChE) and butyrylcholinesterase activities in the lumbar cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) of 39 patients with dementia of Alzheimer type and 21 age-matched controls. The mean lumbar CSF AChE activity in our patients did not differ significantly from that of controls. The 7S and 11S molecular forms were also unchanged. When CSF was analyzed at six-month intervals, there was no significant decline in AChE activity over a span of 12 months. Our results and those of previous studies demonstrate that CSF AChE is not a useful diagnostic marker of Alzheimer disease.
 ...
PMID:Cholinesterases in cerebrospinal fluid. A longitudinal study in Alzheimer disease. 382 96

Dementia in Parkinson's disease has previously been attributed to the presence in the cerebral cortex of Alzheimer-type neuropathological abnormalities. New evidence suggests, however, that dementia in this disease usually occurs in the absence of substantial Alzheimer-type changes in the cortex and may be related to abnormalities in the cortical cholinergic system. Thus, in Parkinsonian patients with dementia there were extensive reductions of choline acetyltransferase and less extensive reductions of acetylcholinesterase in all four cortical lobes. Choline acetyltransferase reductions in temporal neocortex correlated with the degree of mental impairment assessed by a test of memory and information but not with the extent of plaque or tangle formation. In Parkinson's but not Alzheimer's disease the decrease in neocortical (particularly temporal) choline acetyltransferase correlated with the number of neurons in the nucleus of Meynert suggesting that primary degeneration of these cholinergic neurons may be related, directly or indirectly, to declining cognitive function in Parkinson's disease.
 ...
PMID:Cholinergic correlates of cognitive impairment in Parkinson's disease: comparisons with Alzheimer's disease. 399 51

Recent studies have renewed interest in the role of acetylcholine (ACh) in the cognitive changes associated with ageing and dementia. Deficits in cortical choline acetyltransferase (ChAT) in Alzheimer's disease have been consistently demonstrated, while other research has suggested a connection between deterioration of cortical ACh fibres and dementia. However, despite clear biochemical and anatomical evidence for a fall in ACh in dementia, results of therapeutic trials with cholinergic agonists, precursors and cholinesterase inhibitors have been inconsistent. Such findings suggest that cortical cholinergic disorders are not wholly a function of simple biochemical change; alterations of impulse flow along cholinergic fibres could well be as debilitating. An important extrinsic source of cortical ACh innervation derives from neurones diffusely located in rat basal forebrain, denoted the nucleus basalis (NB). We have now investigated the impulse conduction properties of cortically projecting, putatively cholinergic NB axons in adult and aged rats and have found that conduction latencies from NB to frontal cortex are significantly longer (by 51%) in aged animals. In addition, systematic analysis varying cortical stimulation depth revealed that these longer latencies are due entirely to decreased conduction velocities in the subcortical fibre projections. Indeed, intracortical velocities were virtually identical in the two groups. Our results indicate that ageing occasions a decrease in the temporal fidelity of impulse flow in the cholinergic input to the cortex from the NB, a previously overlooked but potentially important element in cognitive deficits that occur with age.
 ...
PMID:Age-impaired impulse flow from nucleus basalis to cortex. 406 17

Cultures derived from rat cerebral hemispheres were sequentially stained for acetylcholinesterase activity and for either somatostatin-like immunoreactivity or cholecystokinin-like immunoreactivity. Somatostatin-like immunoreactivity was found to coexist with acetylcholinesterase activity in individual neurons of several morphological subtypes, but cholecystokinin-like immunoreactivity and acetycholinesterase activity were never seen in the same neurons. These findings suggest a specific anatomical association, perhaps even an overlap, of the cholinergic and somatostatinergic systems in the mammalian cerebrum, and indicate that the combined deficiencies of somatostatin and cholinergic markers in Alzheimer's dementia and senile dementia of the Alzheimer type may be of pathophysiological importance.
 ...
PMID:Coexistence of acetylcholinesterase and somatostatin-immunoreactivity in neurons cultured from rat cerebrum. 614 Jul 57

Cholinesterase (ChE) activity and somatostatin-like immunoreactivity (SLI) of the cerebrospinal fluid were determined for 59 patients with dementia of the Alzheimer type (AD/SDAT) and for 19 age-matched control patients with no signs of dementia. Both ChE activities and SLI concentrations of cerebrospinal fluid were reduced significantly in dementia patients compared to the controls. In the AD/SDAT patients cholinesterase and somatostatin-like immunoreactivity levels seemed to be correlated with the severity of dementia. These findings agree with observations of reduced cortical acetylcholinesterase activities and somatostatin values in dementia of the Alzheimer type.
 ...
PMID:Reduced cholinesterase activity and somatostatin-like immunoreactivity in the cerebrospinal fluid of patients with dementia of the Alzheimer type. 614 29

Recent neurochemical studies have indicated that in Alzheimer's disease there is disturbance of the cholinergic metabolism of the brain. Defects in other transmitter systems have also been suggested. As a marker of noradrenergic metabolism of the central nervous system, we measured dopamine-beta-hydroxylase (EC. 1.14.17.1) activity in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) from 60 Alzheimer patients and 20 controls of the same age and sex. Dopamine-beta-hydroxylase activities of the CSF from Alzheimer patients did not differ significantly from those for the controls. The dopamine-beta-hydroxylase activities were not correlated with severity of dementia. As reported previously, the activity of a cholinergic marker, acetylcholinesterase (EC 3.1.1.7), was reduced in the CSF of Alzheimer patients. Interestingly, dopamine-beta-hydroxylase activities were correlated with acetylcholinesterase activities both in Alzheimer patients and control group.
 ...
PMID:Dopamine-beta-hydroxylase and acetylcholinesterase activities of cerebrospinal fluid in Alzheimer's disease. 614 48

Monoclonal antibodies to choline acetyltransferase and a histochemical method for the concurrent demonstration of acetylcholinesterase and horseradish peroxidase were used to investigate the organization of ascending cholinergic pathways in the central nervous system of the rat. The cortical mantle, the amygdaloid complex, the hippocampal formation, the olfactory bulb and the thalamic nuclei receive their cholinergic innervation principally, from cholinergic projection neurons of the basal forebrain and upper brainstem. On the basis of connectivity patterns, we subdivided these cholinergic neurons into six major sectors. The Ch1 and Ch2 sectors are contained within the medial septal nucleus and the vertical limb nucleus of the diagonal band, respectively. They provide the major cholinergic projections of the hippocampus. The Ch3 sector is contained mostly within the lateral portion of the horizontal limb nucleus of the diagonal band and provides the major cholinergic innervation to the olfactory bulb. The Ch4 sector includes cholinergic neurons in the nucleus basalis, and also within parts of the diagonal band nuclei. Neurons of the Ch4 sector provide the major cholinergic innervation of the cortical mantle and the amygdala. The Ch5-Ch6 sectors are contained mostly within the pedunculopontine nucleus of the pontomesencephalic reticular formation (Ch5) and within the laterodorsal tegmental gray of the periventricular area (Ch6). These sectors provide the major cholinergic innervation of the thalamus. The Ch5-Ch6 neurons also provide a minor component of the corticopetal cholinergic innervation. These central cholinergic pathways have been implicated in a variety of behaviors and especially in memory function. It appears that the age-related changes of memory function as well as some of the behavioral disturbances seen in the dementia of Alzheimer's Disease may be related to pathological alterations along central cholinergic pathways.
 ...
PMID:Central cholinergic pathways in the rat: an overview based on an alternative nomenclature (Ch1-Ch6). 632 48


<< Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Next >>