Both Irreversible Neuronal Death and Reversible Neuronal Stress Are Associated with Increased Levels of Statin, a Marker of Cell Cycle Arrest

It is well known that cell death forms an important part of normal developmental and plastic processes in the brain. For example, during development, proliferating neuronal precursors generate a population of differentiated neurons, some of which make contact with their targets and survive. Neurons that cannot make appropriate targets activate an endogenous gene-directed death program (Cunningham, 1982; Oppenheimer, 1991). Thus, there is an important relationship between cell proliferation, differentiation, and death in neurons.