Contrasting Sodium and Potassium Perturbations in the Hippocampus Indicate Potential Na +/K +-ATPase Dysfunction in Vascular Dementia

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Vascular dementia (VaD) is thought to be the second most common cause of age-related dementia amongst the elderly. However, at present, there are no available disease-modifying therapies for VaD, probably due to insufficient understanding about the molecular basis of the disease. While the notion of metal dyshomeostasis in various age-related dementias has gained considerable attention in recent years, there remains little comparable investigation in VaD. To address this evident gap, we employed inductively coupled-plasma mass spectrometry to measure the concentrations of nine essential metals in both dry- and wet-weight hippocampal post-mortem tissue from cases with VaD (n = 10) and age-/sex-matched controls (n = 10). We also applied principal component analysis to compare the metallomic pattern of VaD in the hippocampus with our previous hippocampal metal datasets for Alzheimer's disease, Huntington's disease, Parkinson's disease, and type-2 diabetes, which had been measured using the same methodology. We found substantive novel evidence for elevated hippocampal Na levels and Na/K ratios in both wet- and dry-weight analyses, whereas decreased K levels were present only in wet tissue. Multivariate analysis revealed no distinguishable hippocampal differences in metal-evoked patterns between these dementia-causing diseases in this study. Contrasting levels of Na and K in hippocampal VaD tissue may suggest dysfunction of the Na+/K+-exchanging ATPase (EC 7.2.2.13), possibly stemming from deficient metabolic energy (ATP) generation. These findings therefore highlight the potential diagnostic importance of cerebral sodium measurement in VaD patients.
Original languageEnglish
Article number822787
Pages (from-to)822787
JournalFrontiers in aging neuroscience
Volume14
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 28 Jan 2022

Keywords

  • Na /K -exchanging ATPase
  • brain-potassium levels
  • brain-sodium levels
  • metal dyshomeostasis
  • neurodegeneration
  • vascular dementia

Research Beacons, Institutes and Platforms

  • Manchester Cancer Research Centre

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Contrasting Sodium and Potassium Perturbations in the Hippocampus Indicate Potential Na +/K +-ATPase Dysfunction in Vascular Dementia'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this