Neurons loss statistics

We then evaluated the neuronal cell loss on sections stained for the neuronal marker NeuN. Staining revealed a marked reduction of NeuN+ cells in CA1 starting from day 4 that persisted at later time-points (Fig. 4). Some patchy cell loss was seen also in CA2, CA3, and CA4 (arrows in Fig. 4), while DG and subiculum did not exhibit cell loss. Statistical analysis of the number of NeuN+ cells in frames placed in proximal, middle, and distal CA1 demonstrated a significant reduction of positive cells in all postischemic monkeys (Fig. 5, left column). Despite some reduction of... 

Currently, there is a commonly expressed view that decreased cortical volume in schizophrenia is the result of a reduction of cortical neuropil, presumably due to an atrophy of neural dendrites and axons (e.g., (Selemon and Goldman-Rakic, 1999)). A direct prediction of this model is that neuron density should be increased in proportion to the decrease in cortical volume. While there is some evidence for increased density in the prefrontal cortex (Selemon et al., 1995, 2003), there are also a number of negative findings (Akbarian et al., 1995 Cotter et al., 2002 Cullen et al., 2006 Thune et al., 2001). In auditory areas, the available studies have not shown an altered neuron density, even with hemispheric comparisons (Beasley et al., 2005 Cotter et al., 2004 Smiley et al., 2002). An alternative hypothesis is that reduced cortical volume is accompanied by a loss of neuron number, but this issue remains to be addressed in the auditory cortex. In other brain areas, there is some evidence for decreased neuron number, although the differences are often subtle and statistically nonsignificant (Benes et al., 1986 Dorph-Petersen et al., 2007 Stark et al., 2004 Thune et al., 2001). Changes in total cell number in the cerebral cortex have been difficult to determine, because these measurements require a clearly identified reference volume. 

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