title: Quantitative analysis of basal dendritic tree of layer III pyramidal neurons in different areas of adult human frontal cortex.
abstract: Large long projecting (cortico-cortical) layer IIIc pyramidal neurons were recently disclosed to be in the basis of cognitive processing in primates. Therefore, we quantitatively examined the basal dendritic morphology of these neurons by using rapid Golgi and Golgi Cox impregnation methods among three distinct Brodmann areas (BA) of an adult human frontal cortex: the primary motor BA4 and the associative magnopyramidal BA9 from left hemisphere and the Broca's speech BA45 from both hemispheres. There was no statistically significant difference in basal dendritic length or complexity, as dendritic spine number or their density between analyzed BA's. In addition, we analyzed each of these BA's immunocytochemically for distribution of SMI-32, a marker of largest long distance projecting neurons. Within layer IIIc, the highest density of SMI-32 immunopositive pyramidal neurons was observed in associative BA9, while in primary BA4 they were sparse. Taken together, these data suggest that an increase in the complexity of cortico-cortical network within human frontal areas of different functional order may be principally based on the increase in density of large, SMI-32 immunopositive layer IIIc neurons, rather than by further increase in complexity of their dendritic tree and synaptic network.
authors.affiliation: Croatian Studies, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia.
authors.forename: Martina
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Zeba
authors.forename: Natasa
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Jovanov-Milosević
authors.forename: Zdravko
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Petanjek
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D003712:Dendrites / Q000648:ultrastructure*; D005260:Female; D005625:Frontal Lobe / Q000033:anatomy & histology*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D017966:Pyramidal Cells / Q000648:ultrastructure*