Fig. 1

Assessment of neuronal loss in resected hippocampi from patients with mesial temporal lobe epilepsy (MTLE) relative to control with neuron-specific nuclear antigen (NeuN) immunohistochemistry. Shown are microscopical images from four resected hippocampi and a postmortem control (CTL), with enlarged views as indicated. The labeled cellular profiles are greatly lost in CA1 in the resected samples (A, B, B1, C, C1, D) compared to CTL (E, E1), with neuronal loss also seen in the former in CA3, subiculum (Sub) (B, C) and CA2 (D) with variations between samples. Pyramidal neurons in CA2 and the joining CA3 and CA1 areas are relatively preserved in the resected sections (A, C). Granule cell dispersion is present in the resected hippocampi (A, B, B2, C), with ectopic granule cells forming bizarre-looking islands (B2). Panel (D) shows the cell counting method used in this study, with the numerical densities of labeled neurons from the hilus (Hi) and CA3 combined at final data assembling. Report of ANOVA test for the numerical cell densities of the regions and groups is placed in the graph, with the asterisk symbol (*) indicating statistically significant intergroup differences according to Tukey’s multiple comparisons posthoc test (F, same format for other figures). Additional abbreviations: GCL: granule cell layer; s.p.: stratum pyramidale; WM: white matter. Scale bars are as indicated.