Comparative morphometric study of cerebellar neurons. I. Granule cells.
Several differences concerning granule cell characteristics have been reported in phylogenetic studies. In this work, the granule cell features of 4 frogs, 4 pigeons, 4 rats, 4 cats and 6 human subjects were determined using morphometric methods. Frog granule cells showed a significantly greater volume and a significantly lower numerical density in comparison with the other species; nevertheless no significant differences were found concerning their organelles. The volume of granule cells was significantly smaller in man than in the other two mammal species but no significant differences were observed in their numerical densities. A significant negative correlation was found between the mean cellular volume and the numerical density of granule cells in every species. These results support the assumption that the biological development of the human cerebellar granular layer is accompanied by a miniaturization of the granule cells, in a way similar to that previously suggested for cerebral neurons.
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000818:Animals; D001001:Anura; D002415:Cats / Q000033:anatomy & histology*; D002467:Cell Nucleus / Q000648:ultrastructure; D002525:Cerebellar Cortex / Q000166:cytology*; D002648:Child; D010856:Columbidae / Q000033:anatomy & histology*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009474:Neurons / Q000166:cytology; D009940:Organoids / Q000648:ultrastructure; D011894:Rana pipiens / Q000033:anatomy & histology*; D051381:Rats / Q000033:anatomy & histology*; D013223:Statistics as Topic