Neuroaxonal dystrophy with neuromelanin deposition, neurofibrillary tangles, and neuronal loss. Light- and electron-microscopic changes in a 45-year-old woman with progressive psychomotor deterioration.

Neuroaxonal spheroids became evident microscopically after the autopsy of a 45-year-old woman with pigmentation of the globus pallidus suggesting Hallervorden-Spatz disease. In our opinion the fine floccular pigment seen electron-microscopically in many of the axonal spheroids is melanin, an end product of catecholamine metabolism. Neurofibrillary degeneration, senile plaques, and granulovacuolar degeneration in the hippocampus produced a picture of Alzheimer's disease. Pontocerebellar degeneration and motor neuron disease were also observed.