The process of degeneration and dendritic reorganization of cholinergic neurons was investigated in the rat basal forebrain under the conditions of chronic neurotoxic injury induced by long-term consumption of ethanol. After 28 weeks of ethanol treatment (20% v/v), both the number of choline acetyltransferase-immunoreactive basal forebrain neurons and levels of biochemical measures of cholinergic neurons, such as the activity of choline acetyltransferase and the synthesis and content of acetylcholine, were decreased by about 60-80%. The number of cholinergic neurons showing a positive hybridization signal to choline acetyltransferase messenger RNA was decreased to a similar extent. On the contrary, the reduction in the number of neurons immunoreactive for nerve growth factor receptor p75, which in control brains is highly co-localized with the expression of choline acetyltransferase, was much less pronounced and reached only 20-30%. The loss of choline acetyltransferase expression was associated with a cellular hypertrophy. Neurons which had survived the neurotoxic damage, furthermore, showed a remodelling of the dendritic organization which was quantitatively investigated after Golgi impregnation. This process of dendritic reorganization was mainly characterized by an increase in number and length of terminal dendritic segments. The results indicate that under the conditions of the present paradigm of chronic neurodegeneration, a certain number of cholinergic neurons persists in a form where they lost their ability to express detectable amounts of choline acetyltransferase messenger RNA and the enzyme protein. Persisting neurons, however, show both expression of nerve growth factor receptor p75 and signs of perikaryal and dendritic growth. It might, therefore, be hypothesized that chronic degeneration of cholinergic basal forebrain neurons triggers reactive attempts of repair which involve the action of trophic factors such as nerve growth factor.