1.

Ultrastructural characteristics of hippocampal neurons in young and old rats with and without 0.2% ALCAR and 0.1% LA diet supplementation. (A) The cell body from a young control rat hippocampus shows the presence of a large number of normal mitochondria. Some of the mitochondria however show minimal changes in their matrix (single arrows indicate the presence of intramitochondrial oedema; double arrows indicate electron dense mitochondria). (B) Mitochondria from the neu-ronal cell body of YT rat show completely intact morphology (arrow indicates normal healthy mitochondrion) (×15,000). (C) The main features of neuronal abnormality in aged control rats appear to be the presence of a range of mitochondria lesions. Some mitochondria however still show intact morphology (single arrows). A giant lipofuscin deposit was close to this neuronal cell body (×15,000). (D) Hippocampal neurons from the OT group are characterized by the absence of mitochondria degeneration. Single arrows indicate normal mitochondria. Lipofuscin was also absent in the neuronal cell body as well as in other cellular compartments in this group of experiments (×15.000). N, nucleus.