I find the cholesterol concentrations in this study to be rather low. The authors report 6.61 micrograms cholesterol per mg protein in human brain. According to Dietschy and Turley (1), cholesterol should be 23 mg/g brain tissue.

Furthermore, it would have been helpful if the discussion had dealt with studies like that of Ledesma et al. (2), which report less cholesterol in AD brains.

References:
1. Dietschy JM, Turley SD. Thematic review series: brain Lipids. Cholesterol metabolism in the central nervous system during early development and in the mature animal. J Lipid Res. 2004 Aug;45(8):1375-97. Abstract

2. Ledesma MD, Abad-Rodriguez J, Galvan C, Biondi E, Navarro P, Delacourte A, Dingwall C, Dotti CG. Raft disorganization leads to reduced plasmin activity in Alzheimer's disease brains. EMBO Rep. 2003 Dec;4(12):1190-6. Abstract

View all comments by Håkan Toresson