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About quantitative studies on the cerebral cortex*
Author(s) -
Bonin Gerhardt Von
Publication year - 1973
Publication title -
journal of microscopy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.569
H-Index - 111
eISSN - 1365-2818
pISSN - 0022-2720
DOI - 10.1111/j.1365-2818.1973.tb03855.x
Subject(s) - thalamus , cortex (anatomy) , basal ganglia , cerebral cortex , nerve cells , neuroscience , brain cortex , grey matter , basal (medicine) , biology , anatomy , central nervous system , white matter , medicine , microbiology and biotechnology , radiology , magnetic resonance imaging , insulin , endocrinology
SUMMARY Among the well established facts we can count that the cortex increases in volume against the thalamus as well as against the basal ganglia as we go from smaller to larger forms, and that the thickness of the cortex does not increase uniformly with the size of the brain. The details of the size of the thalamus and of the basal ganglia are not satisfactorily established. The values for the brains of whales and of man, which were measured by several individuals, but by the same technique, agree very well with each other. The number of cells in the cortex is not known with any degree of accuracy nor is the theoretical value of the grey cell coefficient well established. We advocate abandoning it, and replacing it with some measure of the number of synapses and/or the number of nerve fibres entering and leaving the cortex which can be established with greater accuracy.