Study On Cerebellar Fastigial Nucleus’s Morphological Changes And Its Apoptosis Pathway In Rats With Vascular Dementia

ObjectiveTo observe the fastigial nucleus’s histopathological changes in VD ratsand to explore preliminarily the apoptotic pathway of the fastigial nucleus in VDrats.MethodsHealthy Sprague-Dawley (SD) rats were randomly divided into two groups:sham operation group and the VD group. VD group was divided into1weekgroup，2week group and1month group after surgery. We evaluated thebehavioral observation of the rats using the Morris water maze tests.Morphological changes of fastigial nucleus were observed by HE staining. Theneurons changes of fastigial nucleus were inspected by nissl staining. TUNELstaining was used for detecting cell apoptosis. Besides, Immunohistochemicalstaining was applied to detect the change about the expressions of caspase-3,caspase-8, caspase-9, PARP-1and AIF protein in the fastigial nucleus of rats.ResultsThe result showed that the escape latencies were significantly increased inVD rats (1week,2week and1month groups) when compared with in thesham-operated rats(P <0.01), and the escape latencies increased with timeextending. But there were no statistically significant differences in the escapelatencies between the2week group and the1month group (p＞0.05); HEstaining showed that cells of the fastigial nucleus in the sham group were integrity and normal. Compared with morphological change in the sham group,the cells of the fastigial nucleus in the VD group showed volume shrinked,nucleus and endochylema had no clear margin, cells emerged karyopycnosis,and further aggravated with time extending; The number of the normal neuron inthe sham group was more than that in the VD group through Nissl staining (P <0.01); TUNEL staining showed very little apoptotic cells of the cerebellar fastigialnucleus in the sham group，but there were more apoptotic cells of the cerebellarfastigial nucleus in the VD groups(P <0.01). The expressions of caspase-3,caspase-8，PARP-1and AIF by immunohistochemical method were significantlyincreased in fastigial nucleus of VD rats when compared with the sham group (P<0.01), but The expressions of caspase-9were not manifest when comparedwith the sham group.ConclusionsThe fastigial nucleus suffered from damage in VD rats.caspase-8mediatedreceptor pathway and PARP-1/AIF mediated caspase-independent pathwaywere involved in the apoptosis process of fastigial nucleus.