Interlaminar Astrocytes In Superficial Cerebral Layers Of Patients With Refractory Epilepsy

Objective: Interlaminar astrocyte (IA), one type of astrocytes that is located inlamina Ⅰ with long processes, has been studied in several major psychiatric disorders.As yet, there is no morphometric study of this primate-specific astrocyte in epilepsy.The aim of the current work was to investigate the morphological distribution of IA inthe cerebral cortex of patients with epilepsy.Methods: Morphometric analysis, using Image-Pro Plus (IPP)6.0or Neuro-ImageCompute, was performed on the paired-images, which were obtained from adjacentsections of34surgical specimens with Immunohistochemical staining for glial fibrillaryacidic protein (GFAP), excitatory amino acid transporter2(EAAT2), Neuron-SpecificNuclear Protein（NeuN）or Nissl.Results: IA thickness of GFAP-IR soma bend (GSB) in epilepsy was significantlythinner in gyri than sulci（P=0.007）. Compared with the lamina Ⅰ, IA GSB thicknessshowed significantly thinner, both in gyri（P=0.022）and sulci（P=0.002）. Meanwhile,delamination of EAAT2layout was observed. There ware no significant differencesanalyzed between gyri and sulci analyzed in the first layer thickness of EAAT2. And thefirst layer was thinner than IA GSB’s, both in gyri（P=0.005）and sulci（P=0.000）. Thethickness of IA GFAP-IR band (including GFAP-IR soma and GFAP-IR process of IA),with respect to the thickness of lamina Ⅰ＋Ⅱ, did not exhibit significant variation.Conclusion: In epilepsy, the GFAP-IR soma locating band is one part of laminaⅠ. And its thicknesses in gyri and sulci were not the same.The GFAP-IR process of IA penetrated deep into lamina Ⅱ.Unlike GFAP-IR soma locating band, the thickness of EAAT2layer Ⅰ did notshow significant variation between gyri and sulci and was thinner than GFAP-IR soma locating band.