Label-free Aβ plaque detection in Alzheimer's disease brain tissue using infrared microscopy and neural networks.

ABSTRACT: We present a novel method for the label-free detection of amyloid-beta (Aβ) plaques, the key hallmark of Alzheimer's disease, in human brain tissue sections. Conventionally, immunohistochemistry (IHC) is employed for the characterization of Aβ plaques, hindering subsequent analysis. Here, a semi-supervised convolutional neural network (CNN) is trained to detect Aβ plaques in quantum cascade laser infrared (QCL-IR) microscopy images. Laser microdissection (LMD) is then used to precisely extract plaques from snap-frozen, unstained tissue sections. Mass spectrometry-based proteomics reveals a loss of soluble proteins in IHC stained samples. Our method prevents this loss and provides a novel tool that expands the scope of molecular analysis methods to chemically native plaques. Insight into so

SUBMITTER: Muller D 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11903818 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature