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Cerebral Cortex Advance Access first published online on February 1, 2006
This version published online on June 29, 2006
Cerebral Cortex, doi:10.1093/cercor/bhj134
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© The Author 2006. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org The online version of this article has been published under an open access model. Users are entitled to use, reproduce, disseminate, or display the open access version of this article for non-commercial purposes provided that: the original authorship is properly and fully attributed; the Journal and Oxford University Press are attributed as the original place of publication with the correct citation details given; if an article is subsequently reproduced or disseminated not in its entirety but only in part or as a derivative work this must be clearly indicated. For commercial re-use, please contact journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org.

Article

A Temporal Continuity to the Vertical Organization of the Human Neocortex

Manuel F. Casanova 1 *, Juan Trippe II 1, and Andrew Switala 1

1 Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, University of Louisville, Louisville, KY 40292, USA

* To whom correspondence should be addressed.
Manuel F. Casanova, E-mail: m0casa02{at}Louisville.edu


  Abstract

Radial translaminar arrays of pyramidal cells--minicolumns--are a pervasive structural motif of placental mammalian neocortex, which are anticipated in the earliest stages of cortical development by the formation of ontogenetic cell columns comprising radial glial cells and associated radially migrating neurons. In the present study we examine the temporal continuity in these structures throughout development and aging. Computerized image analysis of micrograph Nissl-stained postmortem tissue produced estimates of the median free path through neuropil in the radial direction (parallel to pyramidal cell arrays) and in the tangential direction (parallel to the cortical surface). These data were modeled as a biphasic power law with respect to in utero development and postnatal age, multiplied by a decay factor. No significant change in the ratio of radial to tangential neuropil space was demonstrated in either the prenatal or postnatal sample population. Neuropil development follows a prenatal phase of cubic volumetric growth with a postnatal phase of linear volumetric growth. The data suggest the continuity of columnar structures from early in gestation through postnatal maturation.

Keywords: brain; development; minicolumns; neocortex; neuropil.
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