Figure 5

Altered dendritic spine density of BLA neurons in CLP-exposed mice. (A) Traces of representative Golgi-stained BLA neurons from the sham and CLP groups. Concentric rings illustrate the dendritic Sholl analysis, using concentric circles whose diameter expands in 10 µm intervals. (B) The graph shows the length of BLA dendrites (obtained from Sholl analysis) versus distance from the cell body. Values are not significantly different between groups (ns, not significant; P = 0.99, D = 0.18, Z = 042, Kolmogorov-Smirnov test). (C) The graph shows that the cumulative probability of the distribution of primary dendrites for both groups is comparable (inset shows box plots; ns, P = 0.045, t test). (D-E) Box plots of dendritic measurements are comparable for total length (D, ns, P = 0.23, t test), and mean length (E, ns, P = 0.88, t test). (F) Micrographs show abundant dendritic spines in the sham dendrite (left) and fewer spines in the CLP dendrite (right). (G-H) Box plots of spine density show that the CLP group has significantly fewer spines than the sham group for the BLA dendrites at (G) 8 wks and (H) 24 wks post-surgery. Statistics, ** P < 0.01 by t test.