No age-related cell loss in three retinal nuclear layers of the Long-Evans rat
- 1 November 2007
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Cambridge University Press (CUP) in Visual Neuroscience
- Vol. 24 (6), 799-803
- https://doi.org/10.1017/s0952523807070721
Abstract
The retina mainly contains ganglion, bipolar and photoreceptor cells which are distributed in the ganglion cell layer (GCL), inner nuclear layer (INL) and outer nuclear layer (ONL), respectively. Whether there is an age-related loss of these retinal cells remains not well understood. Cell density and the total number of cells were two commonly used measures to evaluate such age-related changes in most previous studies and provided controversial conclusions. The use of density measures as decisive data is problematic because the total area of the retina was expanded in aging, whereas the application of the total number of cells was limited for assessing ganglion cells. In this study, thus, we wanted to test whether there is an age-related cell loss in the GCL, INL and ONL and if so, whether such a loss is correlated to the convergence ratio of these cells. We used stereological procedures to quantify the total number of cells in the three retinal nuclear layers in six young and six aged Long-Evans rats. We found that during aging, the total volume of the retina remained unchanged, but the retina became thinner. There was no cell loss in each individual nuclear layer, and the ratio of the ONL to INL to GCL was preserved.Keywords
This publication has 28 references indexed in Scilit:
- Motion perception in rats (Rattus norvegicus sp.): Deficits in albino Wistar rats compared to pigmented Long-Evans ratsBehavioural Brain Research, 2006
- Age-related Changes in Rat RetinaJapanese Journal of Ophthalmology, 2001
- Does Old Age or Parkinson's Disease Cause Bradyphrenia?The Journals of Gerontology: Series A, 1999
- Individual differences in aging: Implications for stereological studies of neuron lossNeurobiology of Aging, 1996
- Effects of aging on the densities, numbers, and sizes of retinal ganglion cells in rhesus monkeyNeurobiology of Aging, 1996
- Changes in the Aging Rat RetinaOphthalmic Research, 1995
- Are you using neuronal densities, synaptic densities or neurochemical densities as your definitive data? there is a better way to goProgress in Neurobiology, 1994
- Morphological changes in the retina of ageing ratsArchives of Gerontology and Geriatrics, 1986
- Morphology and topography of on- and off-alpha cells in the cat retinaProceedings of the Royal Society of London. B. Biological Sciences, 1981
- The inner plexiform layer in the retina of the cat: electron microscopic observationsJournal of Neurocytology, 1979