Neuronal cell death in the CNS following injury can coexist as apoptosis, necrosis, and hybrid forms along an apoptosisnecrosis continuum. These different forms of cell death have varying contributions to the neuropathology resulting from excitotoxicity, cerebral ischemia, and target deprivation/axotomy. Degeneration of different populations of cells (neurons and non-neuronal cells) may be mediated by distinct or common causal mechanisms that can temporally overlap and perhaps differ mechanistically in the rate of progression of cell death.