Related Experiment Video
Updated: Sep 20, 2026
Rapid Golgi Stain for Dendritic Spine Visualization in Hippocampus and Prefrontal Cortex
Published on: December 3, 2021
Decreased dendritic spine density on prefrontal cortical and hippocampal pyramidal neurons in postweaning social
Adriana B Silva-Gómez1, Darío Rojas, Ismael Juárez
1Escuela de Biología. Universidad Autónoma de Puebla, Puebla, Mexico.
Insights
Postweaning social isolation in rats increased locomotor activity and altered neuronal structure. Specifically, it reduced dendritic spine density in the hippocampus and medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC).
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Behavioral Neuroscience
Background:
- Postweaning social isolation (pwSI) is a significant environmental stressor.
- Alterations in brain morphology are linked to behavioral changes and psychiatric disorders.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the effects of pwSI on pyramidal neuron morphology in the rat medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) and hippocampus.
- To correlate these morphological changes with locomotor activity.
Main Methods:
- Rats were subjected to pwSI for 8 weeks post-weaning.
- Locomotor activity was assessed.
- Golgi-Cox staining and Sholl analysis were used to examine dendritic morphology and spine density in mPFC and hippocampal CA1 pyramidal neurons.
Main Results:
- pwSI increased locomotor activity in a novel environment.
- A decrease in dendritic length was observed in hippocampal CA1 pyramidal cells, but not in mPFC neurons.
- Dendritic spine density was reduced in both mPFC and hippocampal pyramidal neurons.
- Sholl analysis revealed decreased dendritic complexity in the hippocampus of pwSI rats.
Conclusions:
- pwSI induces significant changes in dendritic morphology and spine density in limbic structures.
- These structural alterations in the mPFC and hippocampus may contribute to behavioral changes observed in pwSI.
- The findings suggest pwSI impacts neural circuits implicated in conditions like schizophrenia.
Abstract:
The effects of postweaning social isolation (pwSI) on the morphology of the pyramidal neurons from the medial part of the prefrontal cortex (mPFC) and hippocampus were investigated in rats. The animals were weaned on day 21 postnatal (P21) and isolated 8 weeks. After the isolation period, locomotor activity was evaluated through 60 min in the locomotor activity chambers and the animals were sacrificed by overdoses of sodium pentobarbital and perfused intracardially with 0.9% saline solution. The brains were removed, processed by the Golgi-Cox stain and analyzed by the Sholl method. The locomotor activity in the novel environment from the isolated rats was increased with respect to the controls. The dendritic morphology clearly showed that the pwSI animals presented a decrease in dendritic length of pyramidal cells from the CA1 of the hippocampus without changes in the pyramidal neurons of the mPFC. However, the density of dendritic spines was decreased in the pyramidal cells from mPFC and Hippocampus. In addition, the Sholl analyses showed that pwSI produced a decrease in the number of sholl intersections compared with the control group only in the hippocampus region. The present results suggest that pwSI may in part affect the dendritic morphology in the limbic structures such as mPFC and hippocampus that are implicated in schizophrenia.
