Table 2:

Morphological features of reactive, ramified, and degenerative microglia.

Morphological Feature	Reactive	Ramified	Degenerative
Soma	↑	↓	↑↓
Atrophy	−	−	±
Hypertrophy	++	−	±
Ramification	−	+	−
Deramification	±	−	+++
Beading	−	−	++
Spheroids	±	−	++
Fragmentation	−	−	++
Inclusion	−	−	++

The distinguishing features of each microglial subtype were defined based on a review of our cohort of 40 cases (see Materials and Methods, Study Design). Symbols: −, absent; ±, less pronounced; +, present; ++, often present; +++, always present ↑, big; ↓, small; ↑↓, irregular. Data are expressed as mean ± standard error of mean.