Cocaine Causes Apoptotic Death in Rat Mesencephalon and Striatum Primary Cultures

Figure 2

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

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