Glial and neuronal cell numbers and cytochrome oxidase activity in CA1 and CA3 during postnatal development and aging of the rat

Cimadevilla, José Manuel; Moreno, Laura; Pardo, Héctor González; Zahonero, M. C.; Árias, Jorge L.

doi:10.1016/s0047-6374(97)00090-0

Cited by 12 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 31 publications

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“…In dentate gyrus, 85% of granule cells are generated between P0 (postnatal day 0) and P7 (Altman and Das, 1965;Bayer, 1980). The total number of CA1 pyramidal neurons remains essentially constant after birth (Boss et al, 1987;Cimadevilla et al, 1997;Sarkisian et al, 1999); however, from 3 to 25 months, the packing density in striatum pyramidale decreases by one-third (Knox, 1982). In striatum radiatum and moleculare, dendritic arborization and the formation of synaptic connections is apparent up to P45 (Pokorny and Yamamoto, 1981a,b), while the spine density on basal and apical dendrites increases significantly between P30 and P90 (Harris et al, 1992;Cintra et al, 1997).…”

Section: Anatomical Developmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Development of spatial firing in the hippocampus of young rats

Martin

Berthoz

2002

Hippocampus

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The hippocampal formation participates in learning and memory, particularly that of a spatial nature. In adult rats, individual CA1 pyramidal neurons only fire when the animal visits specific locations in an environment, the "place field" of the neuron. Other structures (postsubiculum, thalamus, cingulum) contain neurons that code for the animal's instantaneous head direction. Previous work has shown that the rat hippocampal formation undergoes anatomical and neurophysiological maturation during the first 2 months of life and that rats <40 days of age are impaired in spatial navigation tasks. Here we show that the locational firing of CA1 pyramidal neurons is both less specific and less stable in animals aged <50 days. However, preliminary results indicate that head directional firing recorded around day 30 is essentially identical to that seen in adult animals. Therefore, the development of reliable, spatially specific place cell activity parallels the developmental time course of spatial navigational ability, but head directional firing appears before full maturation of the hippocampus.

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Section: Anatomical Developmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Development of spatial firing in the hippocampus of young rats

Martin

Berthoz

2002

Hippocampus

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“…In this regard, not only the organizational but also the transient or “activational” effects of gonadal steroids (Williams,1986; Fitch et al,1991) could contribute to the reported gender differences in hippocampal function. It is therefore possible that prenatal androgen or estrogen may alter critical aspects of hippocampal development in such a way as to influence hippocampal physiology/morphology (Day et al,1993) or eventually cause gender differences reported in spatial navigation in rats around the time of puberty (Cimadevilla et al,1997; Isgor and Sengelaub,1998; Saucier et al,2002).…”

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confidence: 99%

Influence of gonadal steroids on the glial fibrillary acidic protein‐immunoreactive astrocyte population in young rat hippocampus

Conejo

González-Pardo

Cimadevilla

et al. 2004

J of Neuroscience Research

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It is known that expression of glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) as an astrocyte-specific marker can be regulated by levels of circulating gonadal steroids during postnatal development. In addition, astrocytes play an important role in the physiology of the hippocampus, a brain region considered sexually dimorphic at the neuronal level in rodents. To evaluate the contribution of glial cells to gender-related differences in the hippocampus, we estimated the number of GFAP-immunoreactive (GFAP-IR) astrocytes in the hippocampus (CA1 and CA3 areas, dorsal and ventral regions) of male and female rats aged 30 days. Groups of 30-day-old masculinized females (TP-females; injected with testosterone propionate at birth) and feminized males (FLU-males, castrated and treated with flutamide, an androgen receptor antagonist) were included to assess the effects of gonadal hormones on these hippocampal astrocytes. Using the optical fractionator method, the total number of GFAP-IR cells found in CA1 and CA3 areas was significantly higher in males compared to that in age-matched females. This numerical pattern was reversed in TP-females and FLU-males in both hippocampal areas. In addition, more GFAP-IR cells were found in dorsal hippocampus than in the ventral region in the CA1 area from all experimental groups, whereas this result was found in the CA3 area from males and TP-females. Our results suggest an essential contribution of gonadal hormones to gender differences found in the astrocyte population of the rat hippocampus during development.

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