Page 51 - Annual Report 2018

3. SCIENTIFIC ACTIVITY

3.2.3. Departament of Neuropathology specifically regarding Alzheimer's disease. The evo-
lution of the diagnostic criteria themselves (e.g. the
Neuropathology of neurodegenerative disorders is a new criteria for the diagnostic classification of Alz-
specialty in continuous progress with capacity for heimer's disease proposed by the National Institute
contrasting clinical judgment and performance of of Aging - Alzheimer's Association, 2012) and mole-
any diagnostic test, including the most recent bio- cular techniques are converting the histological
markers, with the final diagnosis that is still neuropa- diagnosis into an fundamental element in the pro-
thology ("gold standard"). However, in the field of cess of classifying dementias, definitive or quasi-de-
basic research, neuropathology plays an additional finitive in some cases, but partial or probabilistic in
role, providing critical information about the mole- many others. As repeatedly demonstrated in clinical-
cular components of the characteristic lesions of pathological sessions, made possible in most cases
each disease, the pathogenic mechanisms and the thanks to the donation of brain tissue by patients or
potential biomarkers. their families and the close collaboration of clini-
cians, the final classification of a case requires the
The post-mortem neuropathological findings obser- integration of all clinical, neuroradiological, neuro-
ved in donations of brain tissue from patients with pathological and molecular information, when avai-
neurodegenerative diseases, especially in the case lable.
of dementias, have allowed to know in recent de-
cades the epidemiological reality of these diseases A need for dementia research is the availability of
in the population, and among other evidences, well-diagnosed, classified and long-term preserved
have revealed the high prevalence of combined brain tissue. Brain banks (biobanks of neurological
pathology (Alzheimer's pathology, Vascular patho- samples) respond to this need, and the CIEN Foun-
logy and Lewy pathology, mainly). dation has one of the main brain banks in the
country, the CIEN Tissue Bank (BT-CIEN, for its
The neuropathology of dementia landscape has acronym in Spanish).
dramatically changed in recent years. The incorpo-
ration to the neuropathological diagnosis of new an- Neuropathology also provides significant support for
tibodies for immunostaining and new molecular studies based on animal models of neurological di-
techniques has helped establishing the boundaries seases, both for the histological evaluation of trans-
and internal heterogeneity of entities such as de- genic animals and for the search for natural models
mentia with Lewy bodies and frontotemporal de- of the disease. The Department of Neuropathology
mentia, and has also led to the discovery of new of the CIEN Foundation participates regularly in the
entities in this area (DFT-TDP. DFT-FUS, etc.). The neu- histological evaluation of animal models of different
ropathological study of an increasing number of neurodegenerative diseases developed by CIBER-
patients with neurodegenerative pathology has NED researchers, as well as in the neuropathological
allowed identifying new genetic causes of these study of elderly mammals of the Madrid Zoo.
diseases, thus helping to define new molecular
targets for possible therapeutic approaches. In Department activities
addition, the definition of diagnostic criteria from
large series of brains (in biobanks of neurological The core activity of the UIPA’s Department of Neuro-
tissue or brain banks) has allowed us to address pathology corresponds to the BT-CIEN, both to its or-
the problem of combined and mixed pathology, ganizational and logistical components as well as the

CIEN Foundation Annual Report 2018 / 51