Table 4.

Summary of ganglia and cell bodies stained by antibodies for HuC/D, ChAT and nNOS per millimetre myenteric plexus in different regions of colon from patients of different age groups

Numbers per mm of myenteric plexus	Age group and region of colon (n=patients studied)
	Adult ascending (8)	Elderly ascending (9)	Adult descending (9)	Elderly descending (10)
HuC/D ganglia/mm	1.4±0.1	1.7±0.2	2.1±0.2*	2.0±0.1
HuC/D neurons/mm	7.0±0.9	10.2±0.9	22.9 ± 5.5*†	15.7±1.5
ChAT neurons/mm	2.4±0.3	5.0±0.6‡	5.2±0.8§	4.9±0.8
nNOS neurons/mm	3.8±0.4	5.3±0.8	6.6±0.8	6.2±0.8

The data are expressed as means±SEM. Differences between the two age groups and regions of colon were analysed using analysis of variance with Sidak’s multiple comparison tests.

*P<0.01 (between regions).

†Note the existence of an outlier observation among the HuC/D measurements (neurons/mm) in adult descending colon, which could not be excluded (see figure 3).

‡P<0.05 (between age groups).

§P<0.05 (between regions).

ChAT, choline acetyltransferase; HuC/D, human neuronal protein C/D; nNOS, neuronal nitric oxide synthase.