Hippocampal changes produced by overexpression of the human CHRNA5/A3/B4 gene cluster may underlie cognitive deficits rescued by nicotine in transgenic mice

Table 2 Effects of nicotine exposure on dendritic spines in pyramidal neurons from hippocampal primary cultures

Spines per 10 μm	Filopodia	Stubby	Mushroom-like	Thin
WT Ct	0.56±0.15	2.23±0.72	12.05±1.44	1.00±0.24
WT Nic	0.93±0.22	0.94±0.29^ω	12.82±1.32	1.75±0.37
Tg Ct	1.61±0.35^σ	1.18±0.34	10.96±0.86	1.72±0.31
Tg Nic	2.29±0.68^σ	0.65±0.23^ω	12.21±2.21	2.32±0.44

Number of spines per 10 μm of dendrite length, in neurons from wild type (WT) and TgCHRNA5/A3/B4 (Tg) embryos. Cultures were incubated with medium alone (Ct, Control) or containing nicotine (Nic, 3.25 μm) for 48 h (n = 4-5 cells/culture; 3 - 4 cultures/condition from ≥ 3 experiments). Two-way ANOVA genotype effect σ p ≤ 0.05, treatment effect ω p ≤ 0.05.

ISSN: 2051-5960