A Morphological and Stereological Study on Cervical Spinal Cord of One and Five Months Age Male Rat

Abstract

In this study volume density of gray and white matter of cervical segments of spinal cords of rats were investigated using stereological method. Twelve male Wistar albino rats were used in the study as two different age groups 1 month and 5 months. All animals were fixed by perfusing 10% buffered formalin. Rats were dissected and spinal cords of rats were removed. In the study cervical segments of 1 and 5 months age rats were obtained. One of the first 15 section were selected randomly when the sections were taken. And following every 50th section was determined by systematic random sampling. Thus, 8-10 sections of 5µm thickness were obtained from cervical segments of each animal’s medulla spinalis. These sections were stained by hemotoxylin eosin and they were photographed at microscope. Densities of volumes of all tissue of cervical segments of whole spinal cord and white and gray matters were calculated using dotted area ruler by Cavalieri Principle. SHTEREOM 1.5 package programme was used for counting dotted area. In addition, the volume vales of total cervical segment, volume values of the white matter and the gray matter and the ratios of these volume values to each other were evaluated in the study