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The number of granule cells and spine density on Purkinje cells in aged, ethanol-fed rats

  • SUNY Buffalo

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

21 Scopus citations

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to determine whether chronic intake of ethanol by aged F344 rats was associated with a reduction in parallel fiber input to cerebellar Purkinje neurons (PN). Previous results from this laboratory provided direct evidence that synaptic density in PN dendritic arbors was significantly decreased and indirect evidence that terminal dendritic segments of PN were deleted during chronic ethanol treatment. From these results, it was hypothesized that an ethanol-related deletion of PN terminal dendritic segments might result from 1) a reduction in parallel fiber input to PN from cerebellar granule neurons or 2) a reduction in dendritic spines, the postsynaptic sites for parallel fiber input to PN dendrites. Measurements of the total number of cerebellar granule neurons (GN) and the volume of the GN layer, and measurements of the density of spines on PN terminal dendritic segments were made in separate groups of aged, ethanol-treated and control rats. There were no significant ethanol- related changes in these parameters after 40-48 weeks of ethanol treatment.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)253-260
Number of pages8
JournalAlcohol
Volume17
Issue number3
DOIs
StatePublished - Apr 1999

Keywords

  • Aged F344 male rats
  • Dendritic arbors
  • Ethanol
  • Number of granule neurons
  • Optical fractionator
  • Purkinje neurons
  • Spine density

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