Mapping of Iron in Brain Tissue from Alzheimer's Disease using Magnetic Force Microscopy
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Date
2021-05
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Publisher
The Ohio State University
Abstract
Iron is important for many physiological purposes and its dysregulation is a hallmark in the pathology of neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer's Disease (AD). Specifically, the AD brain consists of nano to microscale iron deposits in regions characterized by neuroinflammation. Thus far, characterizing of iron deposits in tissue sections is limited to histochemical staining or analytical electron microscopy. This study aims to exploit the magnetic properties of iron to identify iron deposits in the AD brain tissue in a label-free manner. Studies were conducted on AD brain tissue sections obtained from Buckeye Brain Bank with age and gender-matched non-AD brains. Thereafter, magnetic force microscopy (MFM) was used as a high-resolution technique on unstained samples to accomplish a magnetic mapping and characterization of iron between AD and non-AD brains. Compared to the non-AD brain, the AD brain tissue exhibited a more frequent presence of iron deposits in the hippocampus and inferior temporal gyrus. MFM mapping can potentially be combined with routine histochemical staining to identify the biochemical environment of iron deposits to better correlate pathological iron distribution with non-invasive techniques like magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).
Description
3rd Place at the 26th Annual Denman Research Form in Engineering: Life and Natural Sciences
Keywords
Alzheimer's disease, Iron, Magnetic Force Microscopy, Magnetic mapping