Fig. 5.
Histologic images of a lateral section of the rat brain in the sagittal plane, taken from an unexposed postnatal day (PND) 7 rat pup (A) and from a PND7 rat pup after 5 h of sevoflurane anesthesia exposure (B). These representative images were taken at 20X magnification using laser fluorescent microscopy to detect caspase 3 depicted in green, staining for apoptotic cells, as well as both NeuN and Hoechst33342 depicted in grayscale, staining for neurons and nuclei, respectively. The exposed animal brain has an increased number of cells that are caspase 3 positive throughout the brain. Insets depict a closer view of the cortex with caspase 3 depicted in green, NeuN depicted in red, and Hoechst33342 depicted in blue; the increase in number of apoptotic cells is clearly seen, particularly in the internal pyramidal and multiform layers of the cerebral cortex.