Fig. 3

Loss of EphA4 increases dendritic spine length and changes spine morphology in ventral CA1 region. a Apical dendritic segments of pyramidal neurons of the ventral CA1 region were randomly chosen and imaged in mice of 10–11 months old. A distinction was made between proximal (30–120 μm from the soma) and distal (120–300 μm from the soma) segments. b Representative images and Neurolucida 360 reconstructions of proximal apical dendritic segments of Ctrl, AD, and AD;EphA4-KO mice. Quantifications of spine density (c), spine length (d, e), and spine head width (f, g) of segments of apical proximal dendrites (one-way ANOVA with Tukey’s multiple comparison test, N = 5 mice/group, n = 29–35 dendritic segments/group). Quantifications of spine density (h), spine length (i, j), and spine head width (k, l) of segments of apical distal dendrites (Kruskal-Wallis test with Dunn’s multiple comparison test, N = 5 mice/group, n = 27–29 dendritic segments/group). *p ≤ 0.05, **p ≤ 0.01, ****p ≤ 0.0001. If no asterisk is shown in the graph, this implies no significance. Scale bar = 2 μm