Dendritic spines are lost in clusters in patients with Alzheimer’s disease published in Scientific Report

Combined confocal microscopy picture showing a neuron with a soma free of PHF-tau.
Dendritic spines are lost in clusters in patients with Alzheimer’s disease
Mite Mijalkov, Giovanni Volpe, Isabel Fernaud-Espinosa, Javier DeFelipe, Joana B. Pereira, Paula Merino-Serrais
Sci. Rep. 11, 12350 (2021)
doi: 10.1038/s41598-021-91726-x
biorXiv: 10.1101/2020.10.20.346718

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder characterized by a deterioration of neuronal connectivity. The pathological accumulation of tau protein in neurons is one of the hallmarks of AD and has been connected to the loss of dendritic spines of pyramidal cells, which are the major targets of cortical excitatory synapses and key elements in memory storage. However, the detailed mechanisms underlying the loss of dendritic spines in patients with AD are still unclear. Here, comparing dendrites with and without tau pathology of AD patients, we show that the presence of tau pathology determines the loss of dendritic spines in blocks, ruling out alternative models where spine loss occurs randomly. Since memory storage has been associated with synaptic clusters, the present results provide a new insight into the mechanisms by which tau drives synaptic damage in AD, paving the way to memory deficits by altering spine organization.

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