THE CYTOARCHITECTONICS AND NEURONAL ORGANIZATION OF THE BASOLATERAL NUCLEUS OF THE AMYGDALA OF THE BRAIN IN ALCOHOL-PREFERRING AND ALCOHOL-NONPREFERRING RATS

Abstract

Analysis of cytoarchitectonics of the basolateral nucleus (BLN) of the brain amygdala was performed in cresyl violet-stained frontal paraffin sections of the brain in 10 alcohol-preferring (AP) and 10 alcohol-nonpreferring (ANP) rats (with an equal number of male and female animals in each group). The presence of large and small neurons was detected in BLN. Most of the large neurons in AP rats had the character of chromoneutral and moderately chromophilic cells, while in ANP rats these cells were moderately chromophobic. Application of Golgi method demonstrated that the equivalents of large neurons were long-axonal densely branched pyramid-like neurons, and those of small-sized neurons - short-axonal neurons. The determination of the ratio of large and small-sized neurons showed that in AP rats the proportion of latter was 12.3±0.6%, while in the ANP rats it was significantly greater - 19.70±0.23%. These results help to explain the previously obtained data on larger specific area of BLN in amygdala of ANP rats by the presence of greater number of interneurons than in AP rats.