Clasmatodendrosis correlating with periventricular hyperintensity in mixed dementia.
We report a 79-year-old woman with possible Alzheimer's disease and confluent periventricular white matter hyperintensities on magnetic resonance imaging in whom postmortem analysis unexpectedly demonstrated no periventricular demyelination or cerebral arteriosclerosis. However, astrocytes in the periventricular white matter exhibited clasmatodendrosis, defined as cytoplasmic swelling and vacuolation of astroglia, with beading of their dendrites. This finding represents a previously unrecognized correlate of periventricular white matter hyperintensities. Ann Neurol 2002;52:378-381
Sahlas
Demetrios J
DJ
Sunnybrook and Women's College Health Sciences Centre, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Bilbao
Juan M
JM
Swartz
Richard H
RH
Black
Sandra E
SE
D000368:Aged; D000544:Alzheimer Disease / Q000473:pathology*; D002552:Cerebral Ventricles / Q000473:pathology*; D003712:Dendrites / Q000473:pathology*; D017809:Fatal Outcome; D005260:Female; D005911:Gliosis / Q000473:pathology; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging