Figure 1.

Surgical OVX decreases the spine density in apical dendrites of neocortical layer 5 pyramidal neurons. The representative images show spiny apical dendritic segments (residing in layer 1) of neocortical layer 5 neurons from various brain regions as well as apical dendritic segments from hippocampal CA1 pyramidal neurons in mice that have undergone either sham or OVX surgeries. These are fixed-tissue images showing immunoreactivity against EGFP in Thy1M-GFP mice. In the corresponding scatter plots, each plot point is the spine density of a dendritic segment from four sham and five OVX mice. The numbers of dendritic segment included in each group are as follows: 94 sham and 103 OVX in frontal cortex, U = 2113; 74 sham and 124 OVX in motor cortex, U = 1437.5; 80 sham and 158 OVX in somatosensory cortex, U = 2836; 68 sham and 131 OVX in occipital cortex, p = 0.303 and U = 4057; 75 sham and 132 OVX in hippocampal CA1, U = 2397. Mann–Whitney rank sum test was performed to analyze the significance. ***p < 0.001.