Ultrastructural analysis of the hippocampus of adult rats after long-term adrenalectomy

Removal of adrenal steroids modulates various functions in the brain. Howev er, adrenalectomy (ADX) induced cell death in the hippocampal formation of the adult rat is a recently described phenomenon. We undertook this ultrast ructural study on long-term adrenalectomized (5 months) rats to investigate the mode of cell death in the hippocampus. Our results showed apoptotic ch anges in the hippocampus. In addition we have observed other types of degen eration in the hippocampal neurons. The novel finding in this study is that different morphological patterns of cell death were evident both in the de ntate gyrus and in the pyramidal areas, which may reflect different stages of the same death process. (C) 1999 Published by Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.