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Are Tangles as Toxic as They Look?

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An Erratum to this article was published on 28 June 2011

An Erratum to this article was published on 28 June 2011

Abstract

Neurofibrillary tangles are intracellular accumulations of hyperphosphorylated and misfolded tau protein characteristic of Alzheimer’s disease and other tauopathies. Classic cross-sectional studies of Alzheimer patient brains showed associations of tangle accumulation with neuronal loss, synapse loss, and dementia, which led to the supposition that tangles are toxic to neurons. More recent advances in imaging techniques and mouse models have allowed the direct exploration of the question of toxicity of aggregated versus soluble tau and have surprisingly challenged the view of tangles as toxic species in the brain. Here, we review these recent experiments on the nature of the toxicity of tau with particular emphasis on our experiments imaging tangles in the intact brain through a cranial window, which allows observation of tangle formation and longitudinal imaging of the fate of tangle-bearing neurons.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by National Institute of Health grants AG08487, T32AG000278, AG026249, K99AG33670 and the Alzheimer's Association Zenith Award.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, 114 16th Street, Charlestown, MA, 02129, USA

    Tara L. Spires-Jones, Katherine J. Kopeikina, Robert M. Koffie & Bradley T. Hyman

  2. Department of Anatomy and Neurobiology, Boston University School of Medicine, 72 East Concord Street (L 1004), Boston, MA, 02118, USA

    Katherine J. Kopeikina

  3. Department of Physiology, Anatomy, and Genetics, University of Oxford, Parks Road, Oxford, OX1 3PT, UK

    Alix de Calignon

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  1. Tara L. Spires-Jones
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  2. Katherine J. Kopeikina
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  3. Robert M. Koffie
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  4. Alix de Calignon
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  5. Bradley T. Hyman
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Correspondence to Tara L. Spires-Jones.

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An erratum to this article can be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s12031-011-9581-8

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Spires-Jones, T.L., Kopeikina, K.J., Koffie, R.M. et al. Are Tangles as Toxic as They Look?. J Mol Neurosci 45, 438–444 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12031-011-9566-7

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