The use of amino-cupric-silver method for the impregnation of the somatodendritic and terminal axon degeneration in the central nervous system of animals models of excitotoxicity and schizophrenia, and after acute and subchronic binge ethanol administrati

BENDER C; DE OLMOS S; MANZINI F; HEIMER L; DE OLMOS J

Congreso; Annual Meeting of Society for Neuroscience; 2005

Although many staining procedures have been proposed for the detection of somatodendritic, axon and terminal axon degeneration few of them appear to provide full pictures of the neuropathological processes occurring in animal models of human degenerative diseases. Recently, diverse protocols have been presented which have been claimed to be as sensitive or even more than the silver techniques for the demonstration of the neuronal degeneration occurring in animal models of common use in the laboratories of experimental neuropathology. In the present communication we provide evidences that a slightly modified amino-cupric silver technique (De Olmos et al., 1994) appears to be capable of producing very minute and important information on the existence and distribution of the somatodendritic, axonal and terminal axon degeneration induced in many animals models (rats and mice) of neurodegeneration following the administration of excitotoxins (Kainic, Ibotenic, NMDA, Quinolinic and Quisqualic aminoacids), sublethal dosis of MK-801, trimethyl tin (TMT), doxorubicine, or after semiacute binge ethanol and ischemic insult. On the basis of comparing the results obtained by the cupric silver method with those obtained with the use of protocols reported in the most recent literature, it is concluded that the A-Cu-Ag technique continues to be a very efficacious protocol for the detection and accurate appraisal of the neuronal degeneration produced in the above listed experimental paradigms.