title: The changes of AgNOR parameters of anterior cingulate pyramidal neurons are region-specific in suicidal and non-suicidal depressive patients.
abstract: The anterior cingulate cortex (AC) is consistently implicated in the pathophysiology of depression. While suicide has been shown in previous reports to be closely related to depression, it is still a distinct phenomenon. The aim to differentiate between depression and suicide was approached by the karyometric analysis of AC pyramidal neurons. The study was performed on paraffin-embedded brains from 20 depressive patients (10 of whom had committed suicide) and 24 matched controls. The karyometric parameters of the layer III and V pyramidal neurons of the dorsal and ventral AC were evaluated bilaterally by Argyrophilic Nucleolar Organiser (AgNOR) silver staining method. Control-specific was the increased nuclear area in ontogenetically younger pyramidal neurons layer III in the left dorsal compared with ventral AC (Wilcoxon test, P<0.01). The decreased AgNOR number per nucleus in these cells in the right ventral AC was depression-specific compared with controls (t-test, P=0.047). On the other hand, the diffuse decrease in AgNOR ratio throughout pyramidal neurons on the left side was specific for suicidal depressive patients compared with non-suicidal patients and controls (ANOVA, P=0.028). The results suggest that regionally differentiated depression- and suicide-specific disturbed function of the most important AC output cells exists in depressive patients.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Forensic Medicine, Medical University of Gdask, Gdask, Poland. gost@amg.gda.pl
authors.forename: Tomasz
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Gos
authors.forename: Dieter
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Krell
authors.forename: Ralf
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Brisch
authors.forename: Hendrik
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Bielau
authors.forename: Kurt
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Trübner
authors.forename: Hans-Gert
authors.initials: HG
authors.lastname: Bernstein
authors.forename: Bernhard
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Bogerts
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D034961:Antigens, Nuclear / Q000032:analysis*; D001344:Autopsy; D001921:Brain / Q000473:pathology; D003866:Depressive Disorder / Q000473:pathology*; D005260:Female; D006179:Gyrus Cinguli / Q000473:pathology*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D019964:Mood Disorders / Q000473:pathology; D009474:Neurons / Q000473:pathology / Q000502:physiology*; D009687:Nuclear Proteins / Q000032:analysis*; D017966:Pyramidal Cells / Q000473:pathology / Q000502:physiology*; D013405:Suicide
chemical_list: D034961:Antigens, Nuclear; D009687:Nuclear Proteins; C051963:nucleolar organizer region associated proteins