i have a question related to Prion infection...i wanna know that vacuolation and neuron degeneration are in same region of brain or they can be two separate things? As i saw in some of my hamsters brain vacuolation was in cerebellum and medulla but its very hard to see degenerated neurons in these parts as compared to thalamus or hippocampus...so whats the real answer?
Hi Syed,
In many cases it is difficult to judge if the vacuoles were preceded by neuron loss, but they don't appear to be linked. Often you can see heavy neuron loss in specific regions (e.g. the purkinje cells in the cerebellum or dentate gyrus neurons) without the presence of any vacuoles. Areas with vacuoles often don't show any obvious neuron loss, i.e. the cell distribution looks generally normal.
A number of genes were implicated in the formation of vacuoles, but I haven't read enough of the papers in that area to judge it myself.
Sir do you know any references saying like u said that they are separate mechanisms and its not necessary that they will be together always?
At the top of my head I don't recall a specific paper that looked into this correlation (or lack thereof), but it's not my area of specialization. Hence, I would suggest a thorough PubMed search, which may turn up some papers that deal with this question.
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