The locus coeruleus(LG) is known to be observed a sexual dimorphism in rat CNS. LC is the largest collections of norepinephrine(NE)-containing neurons in the mammalian brain. Especially in rat, all LC neurons contained NE unlike other mammalians, so that specific reactions were found in the tyrosine-hydroxylase(TH) immunoreactive neurons. Sexual dimorphism of rat LC has affected by genes before sex hormone appeared, thereafter affected by sex hormones. In these day, many scientists founded morphological differences between male and female LC morphology, but differences of entire structure was not founded. Thus we investigated sex differences of the LC neuron´s morphology in rat by three-dimensional(3-D) reconstruction using Confocal laser scanning microscopy(CLSM).
We reported that neuron´s shape was relatively-large multipolar neurons and neuron´s processes in dorsal LC proceeded to ventral direction in the male and female rat. Male had a longer anterior-posterior length than female had in dorsal LC. In addition to middle-LC, male rat´s LC had a more thicker posterior region but had not viewed in a previous study. In reverse, female rat´s LC had a thicker anterior region like a previous study. This results using 3-D reconstruction by CLSM showed that the male´s LC was more wide-ranging than female´s relatively.
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