Long-term evaluation of cytoarchitectonic characteristics of prefrontal cortex pyramidal neurons, following global cerebral ischemia and neuroprotective melatonin treatment, in rats.

Global cerebral ischemia induces alterations of working memory, as evidenced in the eight-arm radial maze, in the absence of significant changes of pyramidal neuron population in the prefrontal cortex. These alterations can be prevented by a neuroprotective melatonin treatment. Thus, the cytoarchitectonic characteristics of the pyramidal neurons located at layers III and V in the prefrontal cortex of rats that had been submitted 120 days earlier to acute global cerebral ischemia (15 min four-vessel occlusion), and melatonin (10 mg/(kgh) for 6h, i.v.) or vehicle administration, starting 30min after the end of cerebral blood flow interruption, were evaluated in order to gain information on the changes of the neural substrate underlying disruption of prefrontocortical functioning. Soma size, rough length and number of bifurcations of basilar and apical dendrites, as well as spine density and proportions of the different types of spines in a 50 microm length segment of a secondary dendrite branching from the apical and the basilar dendrites, of pyramidal neurons of the dorsal medial prefrontal cortex, were evaluated in Golgi material. A significant reduction of soma size, apical and basilar dendrite length, number of dendritic bifurcations, and spine density were observed in pyramidal neurons at layers III and V after cerebral ischemia, while these alterations were prevented by melatonin treatment. These cytoarchitectural differences between groups seem to underlie the observed alterations in spatial working memory of ischemic, vehicle-treated rats in the absence of pyramidal neuron loss, as well as the better display of these functions long after ischemia and melatonin neuroprotection.