Maturation of astrocytes in the rat hippocampus: Potential behavioral implications

Several studies have shown that astroglia plays an important role on the physiology of the central ner vous system. However, still little research has focused on the analysis of the astroglial population du ring the postnatal development, and the possible influence of biological factors like sex. Using stereo logical methods, the total number of glial fibrillary acidic protein immunoreactive (GF AP-ir) astrocytes and their morphology, were estimated in CA1 and CA3 hippocampal areas from 21 and 90day-old male and female rats. The number of GFAP-ir astrocytes were significantly increased accor ding to age in both hippocampal areas from females, but the same result was obtained only in the CA3 area of males. In addition, no gender dif ferences were found in both hippocampal areas at 21 days of age, but the opposite result was found at 90 days of age. Numerical changes and gender dif ferences in the developing hippocampal astrocyte population are discussed as related to their possible functional meaning.