Post-ischemic Time-dependent Activity Changes of Hippocampal CA1 cells of the Mongolian Gerbils

ABSTRACT

Changes of single unit activity of CA1 hippocampus region were investigated in anesthetized Mongolian gerbils for six days following transient ischemia. Ischemia was produced immediately before the implantation of micro-wire recording electrodes. In control animals receiving pseudo-ischemic surgery, neither spontaneous neuronal activities (5.70+/-0.4 Hz) nor the number of recorded neurons per animal changed significantly for six days. Correlative firings among simultaneously recorded neurons were weak (correlation coefficient >0.6) in the control animals. Animals subjected to ischemia exhibited a significant elevation of neural firing at post-ischemic 12 hr (9.95+/-0.9 Hz) and day 1 (8.48+/-0.8 Hz), but a significant depression of activity at post-ischemic day 6 (1.84+/-0.3 Hz) when compared to the activities of non-ischemic control animal. Ischemia significantly (correlation coefficient <0.6) increased correlative firings among simultaneously recorded neurons, which were prominent especially during post-ischemic days 1, 2 and 6. Although the numbers of spontaneously active neurons recorded from control group varied within normal range during the experimental period, those from ischemic group changed in post-ischemic time-dependent manner. Temporal changes of the number of cells recorded per animal between control group and ischemic group were also significantly different (p = 0.0084, t = 3.271, df = 10). Cresyl violet staining indicated significant loss of CA1 cells at post-ischemic day 7. Overall, we showed post-ischemic time-dependent, differential changes of three characteristics, including spontaneous activity, network relationship and excitability of CA1 cells, suggesting sustained neural functions. Thus, histological observation of CA1 cell death till post-ischemic day 7 may not represent actual neuronal death.