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Cerebral Cortex Advance Access published online on January 11, 2007
Cerebral Cortex, doi:10.1093/cercor/bhl163
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© 2007 The Authors
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/uk/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Excess of Neurons in the Human Newborn Mediodorsal Thalamus Compared with That of the Adult

Maja Abitz1, Rune Damgaard Nielsen1, Edward G. Jones2, Henning Laursen3, Niels Graem3 and Bente Pakkenberg1

1 Research Laboratory for Stereology and Neuroscience, Bispebjerg University Hospital, Copenhagen, Denmark, 2 Center for Neuroscience, University of California, Davis, CA, USA, 3 Laboratories of Neuropathology and Paediatric Pathology, Rigshospitalet, Copenhagen, Denmark

Address correspondence to Bente Pakkenberg, DrMedSci, Research Laboratory for Stereology and Neuroscience, Bispebjerg University Hospital, Bispebjerg Bakke 23, DK-2400 Copenhagen NV, Denmark. Email: forsklab{at}bbh.hosp.dk.

The aim of this study was to quantify the total number of neurons and glial cells in the mediodorsal nucleus of the thalamus (MD) of 8 newborn human brains, in comparison to 8 adult human brains. The estimates of the cell numbers were obtained using the stereological principles of the optical fractionator. In the case of the adults, the total number of neurons in the entire MD was an average of 41% lower than in the newborn, which was statistically highly significant (P < 0.001). The estimated average total number of neurons in MD thalamus of the newborns was 11.2 million (coefficient of variation [CV] = standard deviation/mean = 0.16), compared with the adults' 6.43 million (CV = 0.15). The glial cell numbers were substantially higher in the adult brains, with an increase of almost 4 times from 10.6 million at birth to 36.3 million in the fully developed adult brain. This is the first demonstration of a higher number of human neurons in the brain of newborns compared with the adult.

Key Words: cell numbers • development • disector • fractionator • neuron loss • stereology


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