Dendritic spine alterations in the hippocampus and parietal cortex of alpha7 nicotinic acetylcholine receptor knockout mice.

Abstract The α7 nicotinic acetylcholine receptor (nAChR) is involved in higher cognitive and memory functions, and is associated with the etiology of neurological diseases involving cognitive decline, including Alzheimer’s disease (AD). We hypothesized that spine changes in the α7 knockout might help to explain the behavioral deficits observed in α7 knockout mice and prodromal hippocampal changes in AD. We quantified several measures of dendritic morphology in the CA1 region of the mouse hippocampus in Golgi-stained material from wildtype and α7 knockout mice at P24. The most significant difference was a 64% increase in thin (L-type) dendritic spines on the CA1 basilar tree in knockout mice (p