Cocaine Causes Apoptotic Death in Rat Mesencephalon and Striatum Primary Cultures

Figure 1

(a) Immunostaining of striatal primary cells treated with PBS (left panel) or treated with cocaine 1.0 mM (right panel) for 24 hours. Neurons were labeled with MAP2 and NeuN (red label). Hoechst 33342 (blue label) was added to monitor chromatin condensation. Arrows indicate dying neurons. Staining was observed under a fluorescent microscope. The treatment with cocaine caused a decrease in neuronal viability and an inhibition of neurite prolongation. (b) Percentage of cell death observed by immunostaining of striatal primary cultures treated with PBS and cocaine for 24 hours. Values are mean ± SEM from five independent experiments. The treatment with cocaine caused a decrease in the viability of the neurons. Significantly different from the control (PBS) value: by Student’s t-test.

(a)

(b)