Montreal Neurological Institute, McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada.
Eur J Neurosci. 2010 Dec;32(11):1940-50. doi: 10.1111/j.1460-9568.2010.07465.x. Epub 2010 Nov 3.
The orbital and ventromedial frontal cortical regions of the human and the macaque monkey brains include several spatially discrete areas which are defined histologically by their distinctive laminar architecture. Although considerable information has been collected on the function and anatomical connections of specific architectonic areas within the orbital and ventromedial frontal cortex of the macaque monkey, the location of comparable areas in the human brain remains controversial. We re-examined the comparability of orbital and ventromedial frontal areas across these two species and provide the first quantitative demonstration of architectonically comparable cortical areas in the human and the macaque brains. Images of Nissl-stained sections of the cortex were obtained at low magnification. Differences in the typical size of neurons in alternating pyramidal and granule cell layers were exploited to segregate the cortical layers before sampling. Profiles of areal neuronal density were sampled across the width of the cortex. The location of individual cortical layers was identified on each profile by sampling a set of equally sized images on which the cortical layers had been manually traced. The rank order of sampled architectonic features in comparable architectonic areas in the two species was significantly correlated. The differences in measured features between gyral and sulcal parts of the same architectonic area are at a minimum 3-4 times smaller than the differences between architectonic areas for the areas examined. Furthermore, the quantified architectonic features arrange areas within the orbital and ventromedial frontal cortex along two dimensions: an anterior-to-posterior and a medial-to-lateral dimension. On the basis of these findings, and in light of known anatomical connections in the macaque, this region of the human cortex appears to comprise at least two hierarchically structured networks of areas.
人类和猕猴大脑的眶额和腹内侧额皮质区域包括几个空间离散的区域，这些区域在组织学上通过其独特的层状结构来定义。尽管已经收集了大量关于猕猴眶额和腹内侧前额皮质特定结构区域的功能和解剖连接的信息，但人类大脑中类似区域的位置仍然存在争议。我们重新检查了这两个物种的眶额和腹内侧前额皮质区域的可比性，并首次提供了人类和猕猴大脑中具有可比结构区域的定量证明。在低倍放大下获得了皮质 Nissl 染色切片的图像。利用交替的锥体和颗粒细胞层中神经元典型大小的差异，在采样之前将皮质层分开。在整个皮质宽度上采样面积神经元密度的轮廓。在每个轮廓上，通过对已经手动追踪了皮质层的一组大小相等的图像进行采样，来确定各个皮质层的位置。两种物种中可比结构区域中采样的结构特征的等级顺序显著相关。同一结构区域的回状和沟状部分之间测量特征的差异最小为 3-4 倍，而不同结构区域之间的差异。此外，量化的结构特征沿两个维度排列眶额和腹内侧前额皮质内的区域：从前到后和从内到外。基于这些发现，并考虑到猕猴中的已知解剖连接，该区域的人类皮质似乎至少包含两个层次结构的区域网络。
