Selective and sensitive silver staining of extracellular amyloid deposits and intraneuronal neurofibrillary changes can be applied to 50-150 microns thick polyethylene glycol sections and/or 5-15 microns thick paraffin sections. The silver techniques take advantage of physical development of the nucleation sites thus permitting tight control of the entire procedure. Both techniques can be applied to routinely fixed autopsy material. They do not require particular skills and considerably facilitate processing of large numbers of sections through entire hemispheres of the human brain.