Golgi staining is a commonly utilized in neuroscience but it should be noted that it is inherently unpredictable with staining of only 4–6 % of total neurons for reasons which remain unknown. Further, dendritic morphology, spine numbers and shape are dynamic with the ability to change rapidly or remain stable for prolonged periods (Holtmaat et al., 2005). Several studies have failed to find ethanol-induced differences in spine density and morphology using the Golgi procedure (Pentney et al., 1984, Galofre et al., 1987, Ferrer et al., 1988). It should be noted that these studies used manual quantification which may have resulted in more error in the findings. However, our findings on morphology and density in mPFC are consistent with recent studies using computer-based quantification of Golgi staining (Whitcher and Klintsova 2008, Hamilton GF et al., 2010) and similar to the findings of Granato et al. (2003) which used a retrograde tracing method and computer-based quantification (Granato et al., 2003). While results from Golgi staining should always be viewed with caveats due to the inconsistency in staining, the consistency in findings suggests that some confidence in the ability to generalize and replicate of the current findings is warranted.
