Department of Biophysics, School of Medicine, University of Belgrade, Belgrade, Serbia.
Neurosci Lett. 2010 Jan 1;468(1):59-63. doi: 10.1016/j.neulet.2009.10.063. Epub 2009 Oct 24.
The dentate nucleus represents the most lateral of the four cerebellar nuclei that serve as a major relay centres for fibres coming from the cerebellar cortex. Although many relevant findings regarding to the three-dimensional structure, the neuronal morphology and the cytoarchitectural development of the dentate nucleus have been presented so far, very little quantitative information has been collected to further explain several types of large neurons in the dentate nucleus. In this study we quantified the morphology of the large dentate neurons in the adult human taking, into account seven morphometric parameters that describe the main properties of the cell soma, the dendritic field and the dendritic branching pattern. Since the lateral cerebellar nucleus in the cat and other lower mammals is homologous to the dentate nucleus in primates and man, we have classified our sample of large neurons in accordance with the shape of the cell body, the dendritic arborization and their location within the dentate nucleus. By performing the appropriate statistical analysis, we have proved that our sample of human dentate neurons can be classified into four distinct types. In that sense, our quantitative analysis verifies the validity of previous qualitative conclusions concerning the large neurons in the developing human dentate nucleus. Furthermore, the present study represents the first attempt to perform a quantitative analysis and cell classification of the large projection neurons in the adult human dentate nucleus.
齿状核是小脑四个核团中最外侧的一个，作为来自小脑皮层纤维的主要中继中心。尽管目前已经提出了许多关于齿状核的三维结构、神经元形态和细胞构筑发育的相关发现，但很少有定量信息被收集来进一步解释齿状核中的几种大型神经元。在这项研究中，我们考虑了七个形态计量参数，这些参数描述了细胞体、树突场和树突分支模式的主要特性，从而对成人的大型齿状核神经元的形态进行了量化。由于猫和其他低等哺乳动物的外侧小脑核与灵长类动物和人类的齿状核同源，我们根据细胞体的形状、树突分支和它们在齿状核内的位置对我们的大型神经元样本进行了分类。通过进行适当的统计分析，我们已经证明，我们的人类齿状核神经元样本可以分为四种不同的类型。从这个意义上说，我们的定量分析验证了先前关于人类发育中齿状核大型神经元的定性结论的有效性。此外，本研究代表了首次尝试对成人齿状核中的大型投射神经元进行定量分析和细胞分类。
