Parkinson disease is associated with profound morphological degeneration of cardiac sympathetic nerves, with tyrosine hydroxylase-immunoreactive axons decreasing to 1.1% of control levels.
Case-Control (n=9)
Yes
Is there morphological evidence of cardiac sympathetic nerve degeneration in patients with Parkinson disease compared to controls?
This study provides pathological confirmation that Parkinson disease causes profound morphological degeneration of cardiac sympathetic nerves, explaining the cardiac sympathetic dysfunction observed in these patients.
In the last few years, cardiac sympathetic dysfunction in Parkinson disease (PD) has been postulated on the basis of decreased cardiac uptake of sympathoneural imaging tracers. However, the pathological substrate for the dysfunction remains to be established. We examined the left ventricular anterior wall from postmortem specimens with immunohistochemical staining for tyrosine hydroxylase (TH), neurofilament (NF) and S-100 protein in PD patients and control subjects, and quantified the immunoreactive areas. As TH-immunoreactive axons nearly disappeared and NF-immunoreactive axons drastically decreased in number, the morphological degeneration of the cardiac sympathetic nerves in PD was confirmed. Quantitative analysis showed that sympathetic nerves were preferentially involved. Triple immunofluorolabeling for NF, TH, and myelin basic protein showed clearly the profound involvement of sympathetic axons in PD. The extent of involvement of the cardiac sympathetic nerves seems likely to be equivalent to that in the central nervous system, including the nigrostriatal dopaminergic system. PD affects the cardiac sympathetic nervous system profoundly as well as nigrostriatal dopaminergic system.
Amino et al. (Wed,) conducted a case-control in Parkinson disease (n=9). Parkinson disease vs. Control subjects without Parkinson disease was evaluated on Quantification of tyrosine hydroxylase (TH)-immunoreactive axons and neurofilament (NF)-immunoreactive axons in the cardiac epicardium. Parkinson disease is associated with profound morphological degeneration of cardiac sympathetic nerves, with tyrosine hydroxylase-immunoreactive axons decreasing to 1.1% of control levels.