Apoptosis: neuronal death by design.

182 J Clin Psychiatry 58:5, May 1997 ying is generally an undesired affair. In recent years, however, it has become clear that many cells, including neurons, are actively programmed to commit molecular hari-kari. Such a process is called apoptosis. This is not the messy affair associated with cellular poisoning or suffocation, known as necrosis. Necrotic cell death is characterized by a severe and sudden injury associated with an inflammatory response. By contrast, apoptosis is more subtle, akin to fading away. Apoptotic cells shrink, whereas necrotic cells explode. The original scientists who discovered apoptosis coined that term to rhyme with necrosis, and also to mean literally a “falling off,” as the petals fall off a flower or the leaves fall from a tree. The cell death machinery is a set of genes which stand ever ready to self-destruct.