Dementia with Lewy bodies. Dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB), also known under a variety of other names including Lewy body dementia, diffuse Lewy body disease, cortical Lewy body disease, and senile dementia of Lewy type, is a type of dementia closely associated with Parkinson's disease.
It is characterized anatomically by the presence of Lewy bodies, clumps of alpha-synuclein and ubiquitin protein in neurons, detectable in post mortem brain histology.[1] Lewy body dementia affects 1.3 million individuals in the United States alone. Classification[edit] Lewy body. Photomicrographs of regions of substantia nigra in this Parkinson's patient show Lewy bodies and Lewy neurites in various magnifications.
Top panels show a 60-times magnification of the alpha-synuclein intraneuronal inclusions aggregated to form Lewy bodies. The bottom panels are 20x magnification images that show strand-like Lewy neurites and rounded Lewy bodies of various sizes. Neuromelanin-laden cells of the substantia nigra are visible in the background. Stains used: mouse monoclonal alpha-synuclein antibody; counterstained with Mayer's haematoxylin.