Ahmadpour, S., Behrad, A., Vega, I. (2019). Dark Neurons: A protective mechanism or a mode of death. Journal of Medical Histology, 3(2), 125-131. doi: 10.21608/jmh.2020.40221.1081
Shahriar Ahmadpour; Arman Behrad; Iván Fernández Vega. "Dark Neurons: A protective mechanism or a mode of death". Journal of Medical Histology, 3, 2, 2019, 125-131. doi: 10.21608/jmh.2020.40221.1081
Ahmadpour, S., Behrad, A., Vega, I. (2019). 'Dark Neurons: A protective mechanism or a mode of death', Journal of Medical Histology, 3(2), pp. 125-131. doi: 10.21608/jmh.2020.40221.1081
Ahmadpour, S., Behrad, A., Vega, I. Dark Neurons: A protective mechanism or a mode of death. Journal of Medical Histology, 2019; 3(2): 125-131. doi: 10.21608/jmh.2020.40221.1081
Dark Neurons: A protective mechanism or a mode of death
1Anatomy Department, Medicine Faculty, North Khorasan University of Medical Sciences, Bojnurd. Iran.
2Department of Pathology, Hospital Universitario Central de Asturias, Oviedo, 33006, Spain
Abstract
More than a century neurons with hyperstaining and compacted feature, dark neurons, have remained as a controversy in clinical and experimental neuropathology studies. Strictly speaking dark neuron formation is characterized with a series of morphological features and time-course stainability, but what made them quite bizarre is their non- enzymatic fashion of formation and reversibility. These enigmatic features led to emerging a new theory based on metastability of a gel- like structure filling the (neuro) cytoplasm. Although based on the gel- gel theory some mysterious aspects of dark neurons could be explained, role of receptors and cytoskeleton were not included. In practice, the term dark neuron is often known as the dead or degenerating neuron while in contrast more than 90-99 percent of dark neurons recover after a short period of time. The aim of this review is to give a clear explanation on the morphological features of dark neuron and also provide a theoretical framework in order to bridge between receptor- cytoskeleton and dark neuron behavior.