Author(s): Nazim Nasir and Aijaz Ahmed Khan
The present study was conducted using 15 albino rats (150-200 gm) and was divided equally into one control and two experimental groups. First group was control, second group re-ceived chronic depression (7 weeks) by immobilization method using rat immobilizer and third group received standard 4 week treatment (using Flouxetine 1mg/kg body wt. orally) following chronic depression. The animals were sacrificed after the experiment, perfused with 10% formaldehyde, brains were dissected and tissue blocks were processed for paraffin embedding. Observations were made between control, experimental and among experimen-tal groups with equal duration of survival on 10 micron thick H & E stained sections. Esti-mation of neuronal density of CA3 regions was performed using Motic images plus 2.0 Software. Neuronal density was markedly reduced (93.4 cells/cubic mm) after chronic de-pression, as compared to control (144.5 cells/cubic mm) and after standard treatment it was enhanced to 159.3 cells /cubic mm. Statistical analysis of these results suggested that effect of long-term stress-induced depression on hippocampus may significantly be reversed by the pharmacological intervention with known antidepressants.