Brain atrophy and neurodegeneration in people with AD. Midsagittal views (center pictures) of the brains from an 85-year-old individual with AD and an 86-year-old normal control individual. The microscopic neuropathological hallmarks of AD are senile plaques (scale bar = 200 μm), neurofibrillary tangles (NFTs, scale bar = 50 μm.), and neuronal cell death determined by transferase-mediated biotin-dUTP nick-end labeling (TUNEL, brown nuclear staining, open arrows, scale bars = 10 μm) as seen in the hippocampus CA1 and in subcortical regions such as the thalamic lateral geniculate nucleus (LGN).