Injury to the brain usually manifests not in a diffuse uniform manner but rather with selective sites of damage indicativeof differential vulnerability. This question of neuronal susceptibility has been one of major interest both in diseaseprocesses as well as damage induced by environmental factors. For experimental examination, brain structures withobvious neuronal subpopulations and organization such as the cerebellum and the hippocampus have offered the mostpromise. In the hippocampus distinct neuronal populations exist that demonstrate differential vulnerability to variousforms of insult including ischemia, excitotoxicity, and environmental factors. The more recent data regarding the presenceof neuronal progenitor cells in the subgranular zone of the dentate offers the opportunity to expand such experimentalexamination to the process of injury-induced neurogenesis. Thus, more recent studies have expanded the examination ofthe hippocampus to include models of damage to the dentate neurons in addition to the highly vulnerable pyramidalneurons. A number of these models are presented for both human disease and experimental animal conditions.Examination of the responses between these distinct cell populations offers the potential for understanding factorsthat are critical in neuronal death and survival.