Effect of aging and Alzheimer's disease-like pathology on brain monoamines in mice

C. U. Von Linstow, Maurizio Severino, Athanasios Metaxas, J Waider, Alicia Babcock, Klaus-Peter Lesch, J. B. Gramsbergen, B. Finsen*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articleResearchpeer-review

Abstract

Aging is the greatest single risk factor of the neurodegenerative disorder Alzheimer's disease (AD). The monoaminergic system, including serotonin (5-HT), dopamine (DA) and noradrenaline (NA) modulates cognition, which is affected in AD. Changes in monoamine levels have been observed in AD, but these can both be age- and/or disease-related. We examined whether brain monoamine levels change as part of physiological aging and/or AD-like disease in APPSWE/PS1δE9 (APP/PS1) transgenic mice. The neocortex, hippocampus, striatum, brainstem and cerebellum of 6-, 12-, 18- and 24-month-old B6C3 wild-type (WT) mice and of 18-month old APP/PS1 and WT mice were analysed for 5-HT, DA and NA contents by high pressure liquid chromatography (HPLC), along with neocortex from 14-month-old APP/PS1 and WT mice. While, we observed no aging effect in WT mice, we detected region-specific changes in the levels of all monoamines in 18-month-old transgenic compared with WT mice. This included reductions in 5-HT (-30%), DA (-47%) and NA (-32%) levels in the neocortex and increases of 5-HT in the brainstem (+18%). No changes were observed in any of the monoamines in the neocortex from 14-month-old APP/PS1 mice. In combination, these findings indicate that aging alone is not sufficient to affect brain monoamine levels, unlike the APPSWE/PS1δE9 genotype.

Original languageEnglish
JournalNeurochemistry International
Volume108
Pages (from-to)238-245
ISSN0197-0186
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2017

Keywords

  • Amyloid precursor protein/presenilin 1
  • Brainstem
  • Dopamine
  • Neocortex
  • Noradrenaline
  • Serotonin

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