Elston G N
Vision, Touch and Hearing Research Centre, Department of Physiology and Pharmacology, The University of Queensland, Queensland, 4072 Australia.
J Neurosci. 2000 Sep 15;20(18):RC95. doi: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.20-18-j0002.2000.
The basal dendritic arbors of pyramidal cells in prefrontal areas 10, 11, and 12 of the macaque monkey were revealed by intracellular injection in fixed, flat-mounted, cortical slices. The size, number of branches, and spine density of the basal dendrites were quantified and compared with those of pyramidal cells in the occipital, parietal, and temporal lobes. These analyses revealed that cells in the frontal lobe were significantly more spinous than those in the other lobes, having as many as 16 times more spines than cells in the primary visual area (V1), four times more those in area 7a, and 45% more than those in area TE. As each dendritic spine receives at least one excitatory input, the large number of spines reported for layer III cells in prefrontal cortex suggests that they are capable of integrating a greater number of excitatory inputs than layer III pyramidal cells so far studied in the occipital, parietal, and temporal lobes. The ability to integrate a large number of excitatory inputs may be important for the sustained tonic activity characteristic of neurons in prefrontal cortex and their role in memory and cognition.
通过在固定的、平铺的皮质切片中进行细胞内注射，揭示了猕猴前额叶10、11和12区锥体细胞的基底树突分支。对基底树突的大小、分支数量和棘密度进行了量化，并与枕叶、顶叶和颞叶的锥体细胞进行了比较。这些分析表明，额叶中的细胞比其他叶中的细胞有更多的棘，其棘的数量比初级视觉区（V1）中的细胞多16倍，比7a区中的细胞多4倍，比TE区中的细胞多45%。由于每个树突棘至少接受一个兴奋性输入，前额叶皮质中III层细胞的大量棘表明，它们比迄今为止在枕叶、顶叶和颞叶中研究的III层锥体细胞能够整合更多的兴奋性输入。整合大量兴奋性输入的能力可能对前额叶皮质神经元的持续紧张性活动特征及其在记忆和认知中的作用很重要。
