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Post-mortem brain analyses of the Lothian Birth Cohort 1936: extending lifetime cognitive and brain phenotyping to the level of the synapse

Overview of attention for article published in Acta Neuropathologica Communications, September 2015
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  • In the top 25% of all research outputs scored by Altmetric
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age (91st percentile)
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age and source (85th percentile)

Mentioned by

blogs
1 blog
twitter
18 X users

Citations

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28 Dimensions

Readers on

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102 Mendeley
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1 CiteULike
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Title
Post-mortem brain analyses of the Lothian Birth Cohort 1936: extending lifetime cognitive and brain phenotyping to the level of the synapse
Published in
Acta Neuropathologica Communications, September 2015
DOI 10.1186/s40478-015-0232-0
Pubmed ID
Authors

Christopher M. Henstridge, Rosemary J. Jackson, JeeSoo M. Kim, Abigail G. Herrmann, Ann K. Wright, Sarah E. Harris, Mark E. Bastin, John M. Starr, Joanna Wardlaw, Thomas H. Gillingwater, Colin Smith, Chris-Anne McKenzie, Simon R. Cox, Ian J. Deary, Tara L. Spires-Jones

Abstract

Non-pathological, age-related cognitive decline varies markedly between individuals andplaces significant financial and emotional strain on people, their families and society as a whole.Understanding the differential age-related decline in brain function is critical not only for the development oftherapeutics to prolong cognitive health into old age, but also to gain insight into pathological ageing suchas Alzheimer's disease. The Lothian Birth Cohort of 1936 (LBC1936) comprises a rare group of people forwhom there are childhood cognitive test scores and longitudinal cognitive data during older age, detailedstructural brain MRI, genome-wide genotyping, and a multitude of other biological, psycho-social, andepidemiological data. Synaptic integrity is a strong indicator of cognitive health in the human brain;however, until recently, it was prohibitively difficult to perform detailed analyses of synaptic and axonalstructure in human tissue sections. We have adapted a novel method of tissue preparation at autopsy toallow the study of human synapses from the LBC1936 cohort in unprecedented morphological andmolecular detail, using the high-resolution imaging techniques of array tomography and electronmicroscopy. This allows us to analyze the brain at sub-micron resolution to assess density, proteincomposition and health of synapses. Here we present data from the first donated LBC1936 brain andcompare our findings to Alzheimer's diseased tissue to highlight the differences between healthy andpathological brain ageing. Our data indicates that compared to an Alzheimer's disease patient, the cognitively normalLBC1936 participant had a remarkable degree of preservation of synaptic structures. However,morphological and molecular markers of degeneration in areas of the brain associated with cognition(prefrontal cortex, anterior cingulate cortex, and superior temporal gyrus) were observed. Our novel post-mortem protocol facilitates high-resolution neuropathological analysis of the well-characterized LBC1936 cohort, extending phenotyping beyond cognition and in vivo imaging to nowinclude neuropathological changes, at the level of single synapses. This approach offers an unprecedentedopportunity to study synaptic and axonal integrity during ageing and how it contributes to differences in agerelatedcognitive change.

X Demographics

X Demographics

The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 18 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 102 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
United Kingdom 2 2%
United States 1 <1%
Unknown 99 97%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Ph. D. Student 28 27%
Researcher 20 20%
Student > Bachelor 11 11%
Student > Master 8 8%
Student > Doctoral Student 5 5%
Other 10 10%
Unknown 20 20%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Neuroscience 19 19%
Agricultural and Biological Sciences 15 15%
Medicine and Dentistry 14 14%
Psychology 10 10%
Immunology and Microbiology 2 2%
Other 14 14%
Unknown 28 27%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 21. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 13 November 2023.
All research outputs
#1,806,941
of 25,547,904 outputs
Outputs from Acta Neuropathologica Communications
#178
of 1,584 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#23,425
of 277,979 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Acta Neuropathologica Communications
#4
of 20 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 25,547,904 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 92nd percentile: it's in the top 10% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 1,584 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 13.7. This one has done well, scoring higher than 88% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 277,979 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 91% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 20 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done well, scoring higher than 85% of its contemporaries.