Age and Environment Influences on Mouse Prion Disease Progression: Behavioral Changes and Morphometry and Stereology of Hippocampal Astrocytes

Figure 6

Astrocyte number and cell body volume changes. (a) In the polymorphic layer, ME7-SE mice showed higher number of astrocytes than NBH-SE animals. AS compared with NBH-SE, an increased number of astrocytes is observed in NBH-EE. (b) In the stratum radiatum of CA3, NBH-A and ME7-A mice showed higher number of astrocytes than NBH-SE and ME7-SE animals, respectively. In contrast to the polymorphic layer, stratum radiatum of CA3 of ME7-EE showed a higher number of astrocytes than that of ME7-SE mice. (c) and (d) show prion disease influence on the cell body volumes of astrocytes in the DG polymorphic layer and stratum radiatum of the CA3, respectively. ME7-SE and ME7-EE showed significant soma hypertrophy in astrocytes from DG and CA3 compared with their respective controls. However, ME7-A cell body volume was smaller than ME7-SE in the polymorphic layer and stratum radiatum of CA3 layers. In the stratum radiatum of CA3, the cell body volume of astrocytes from ME7-EE mice was smaller than that of ME7-SE animals (; ; Bonferroni posttests).

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