The occurrence of neurofibrillary tangles and plaques is common to a number of central nervous system disorders including Guamanian amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), parkinsonism with dementia (PD), and Alzheimer's disease. These NFTs and plaques contain nonessential metals and elevated levels of biological elements. Fixed and frozen thick sections of hippocampus and frontal cortex of human brain from subjects exhibiting symptoms of these diseases have been examined in the CAMECA MBX microprobe. Wave length dispersive x-ray spectrometry (WDS) performed at selected areas has provided both spectra and digital images showing the distribution of elements of interest in the specimens.
