Altered dendritic orientation of hypothalamic neurons from genetically obese (ob/ob) mice.

Individual Golgi-stained neurons from the ventromedial nucleus (VMN) and lateral hypothalamic area (LHA) were analyzed from genetically obese and lean mice. No strain differences were noted for the number of dendrites or the position of dendritic branch points as a function of distance from the cell body for any of the hypothalamic areas sampled. However, both LHA and VMN neurons showed altered dendritic orientation between mouse strains.