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

Figure 10

Graphic representation of results of multivariate statistical analysis of morphometric features of all reconstructed astrocytes (). (a) Dendrogram illustrating astrocyte morphological phenotypes of the DG polymorphic layer from infected and control adults. Branch length, nodes, and soma area were the morphological features that most contributed to cluster formation in young adult groups. (b) Dendrogram illustrating astrocyte morphological phenotypes of the DG polymorphic layer from infected and control aged mice. Tree surface, soma area, branch length, branch nodes, and tree volumes were the morphological features that most contributed to the cluster formation of SE young adults and aged groups. (c) Canonical distribution of the discriminant analysis of morphological phenotypes of the polymorphic layer from both control and infected adult mice. Canonical analysis based on these morphological features revealed significant Mahalanobis distance between ME7 and NBH astrocytes and (e) between ME7-SE and all others. (d) Significant logarithmic correlation was detected between branch volumes and soma area, suggesting an interdependence between these morphological features.

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