Quantitative and Morphological Studies on Developing Optic Axons in Normal and Enucleated Albino Rats

Overview

Journal Exp Brain Res

Specialty Neurology

Date 1984 Jan 1

PMID 6542867

Citations 11

Authors

A J Sefton

K Lam

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

In the albino rat, the number of optic axons increases from 400 on embryonic day 15 to reach a peak of 240000 at birth, before declining to adult numbers (100000) by postnatal day 5. Throughout the period of loss of axons there are few signs of degeneration in the optic nerve, which does not change its diameter: the decrease in density of axons is matched by an increase in the cross-sectional area of individual axons. Myelination of the initially non-myelinated axons starts on day 5, when axonal numbers stabilize. Following neonatal removal of one eye, fewer axons than normal are present in the contralateral optic nerve up to day 5. The axons removed by enucleation may be retino-retinal axons, representing up to 40% of the 83000 fibres lost between postnatal days 2 and 5. There is no increase in the numbers of optic axons in the remaining nerve in adult animals; this appears to be due to the small absolute numbers of ipsilateral axons saved by enucleation. After enucleation, axons remain clear and undergo a "watery" degeneration after initially swelling, and the removal of degenerative products is accomplished within four days.

Citing Articles

Morphometric Analysis of Retinal Ganglion Cell Axons in Normal and Glaucomatous Brown Norway Rats Optic Nerves.

Goyal V, Read A, Brown D, Brawer L, Bateh K, Hannon B Transl Vis Sci Technol. 2023; 12(3):8.

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Pan-retinal ganglion cell markers in mice, rats, and rhesus macaques.

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Beros J, Rodger J, Harvey A Front Cell Dev Biol. 2021; 9:671087.

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Retinal cross talk in the mammalian visual system.

Tang X, Tzekov R, Passaglia C J Neurophysiol. 2016; 115(6):3018-29.

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Exposure of rats to a high but not low dose of ethanol during early postnatal life increases the rate of loss of optic nerve axons and decreases the rate of myelination.

Harris S, Wilce P, Bedi K J Anat. 2000; 197 Pt 3:477-85.

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