Ricki Lewis | Jun 11, 2000 | 5 min read
Microcolumns Collapse in Alzheimer's Brain Tangles and plaques are hallmarks of the Alzheimer's brain. Thanks to a technique borrowed from statistical physics, researchers from Boston University, the University of Minnesota, and Bar-Ilan University in Israel have quantified another sign: microcolumns of 11 neurons that are noticeably diminished in the Alzheimer's brain, and less so in the related condition Lewy body dementia. Using brains from a brain bank, the researchers probed a part of the