1. A quantitative study has been made of transneuronal atrophy in the lateral geniculate nucleus of man. The lateral geniculate nuclei were examined in 7 cases, 1 month to 73 years following unilateral enueleation or unilateral retinal macular lesion. The cell body area of the neurons of the atrophied laminae were compared with those in the normal laminae of the opposite nucleus. One additional case having a normal visual system served as a control for cell body area measurements.2. The cell body area in both normal and atrophied laminae followed a unimodal distribution.3. There was no apparent increase in the number of glial elements in the atrophied laminae as compared qualitatively with normal laminae.4. There was no indication of loss of neurons in the atrophied laminae up to 2 years following unilateral enueleation. For longer periods of time, cell loss did occur.5. During transneuronal atrophy, there was a tendency for a greater decrease in mean cell area for laminae 3 and 5 than for laminae 4 and 6 in 5 of the 7 cases studied. However this difference was statistically significant in only 2 cases.
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