Perez-Cruz, C., Simon, M., Czéh, B., Flügge, G., & Fuchs, E. (2009). Hemispheric differences in basilar dendrites and spines of pyramidal neurons in the rat prelimbic cortex: activity- and stress-induced changes. European Journal of Neuroscience, 29(4), 738-747.
The article I chose looks at the differences in basilar dendrites and spines of pyramidal neurons and their changes in stress induced activities. Previous research has shown that the pyramidal neurons in rat’s medial prefrontal cortex been shown to react to stress and by the shortening or the dendrites and spine loss. In the present study the rats were exposed to daily restraint stress for one week during either a resting or activity period. Adult male rats were housed in groups of three animals per cage. In order to look at any changes the basilar dendrites and spines of Golgi – Cox stained neurons in the left and right hemispheres were digitally remade and analyzed. With sustained stress, adrenal weight increases so the researchers also measured the weights of the rat’s adrenal glands. The experimenters conducted research on the rats in two phases. The first lasted fourteen days in which body weight was recorded daily. The second phase lasted for seven days and consisted of the animals being exposed to daily restraint stress. Animals were on either a normal light cycle or an inverse light cycle. Normal light cycle participants’ restraint stress took place during their resting period. In inverse light cycle animals the restraint stress took place during their activity period. During the restraint stress, each rat was placed in a plastic tube within its home cage and during this time period, the rat had no access to food or water however the control rats were not subject to any type or stress except for the occasional daily handling. The results found that there was an inherent similarity in hemispheres in control rats during the resting period. The left hemisphere had a higher number of spines on proximal dendrites than right hemisphere in control rats. Basal dendrites in control rats had more dendritic material during the resting period than in the activity period. The researchers found that chronic stress reduced the length of basal dendrites in only the right prelimbic cortex; it also reduced spine density on the proximal basal dendrites. The restraint stress that was conducted during the activity period had more pronounced effects on the physiological stress on the rats than did stress during the resting period. The study found that the changes or the neurons to react to external stimuli would show mirror changes in neuronal communication. This article gave me insight on how the brain functions and how it can change from constant stress stimulation. It also shows that stress can affect the brain even right down to the dendrites which I found very interesting.
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