Serotonin transporters are preserved in the neocortex of anxious Alzheimer's disease patients.
Tsang, Shirley W. Y. 1,3; Lai, Mitchell K. P. 2,4,CA; Francis, Paul T. 5; Wong, Peter T.-H. 3; Spence, Ian 4; Esiri, Margaret M. 6; Keene, Janet 7; Hope, Tony 7,8; Chen, Christopher P. L.-H. 1
[Article] Neuroreport. 14(10):1297-1300, July 18, 2003.

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: Densities of serotonin transporters (5-HTT) in the postmortem neocortex of behaviorally assessed Alzheimer's disease (AD) patients and aged controls were measured by radioligand binding with [3H]citalopram. It was found that 5-HTTsites in the temporal cortex of AD patients with prominent antemortem anxiety were unaltered compared with controls, but were reduced in non-anxious AD subjects. Furthermore, homozygosity for the high activity allele of a functional polymorphism in the 5-HTT gene promoter region (5-HTTLPR) was associated with both increased [3H]citalopram binding and occurrence of anxiety in the AD subjects. Since serotonin-synthesizing neurons are known to be lost in the AD cortex, this study suggests that the preservation of 5-HTT may exacerbate serotonergic deficits and underlie anxiety symptoms in AD.

(C) 2003 Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, Inc.