Morphometry of the postnatal development of rat hippocampal capillaries

ABSTRACT

Although the anatomy of the adult mammalian hippocampus has been studied extensively, few reports have dealt with hippocampal cytogenesis and morphogenesis. Moreover, the capillary network, which is the functional component of the vascular bed in terms of tissue metabolic requirements has not been studied during postnatal development of the rat hippocampus. To follow the postnatal development of the capillaries in the rat hippocampal formation in view of the temporal variation in the development of its regions using morphometric parameters. A sample of 37 rats was used, quantitation of the capillaries in four hippocampal regions [subiculum, regio superior, regio inferior, and dentate gyrus] at different postnatal ages [P1, 3, 5, 7, 10, 14, and 21 days] was performed using computer-aided morphometry of alkaline phosphatase positive capillary profiles. Capillary diameter, length/volume density, and intercapillary distance were measured on 30