Quantitative investigations into the histostructural nature of the human putamen. II. The differentiated topological distribution of certain neuron type arrangements.

Several mathematical procedures have been worked out for describing quantitative arrangements of neurons, and especially subpopulations of neurons, in the human putamen. Visual point field analysis is a newly developed method for the qualitative recognition of the fuzzy clustering of types of neurons. Nearest neighbourhood analysis is an established procedure in stochastic geometry and image analysis. These cluster-analytical methods make possible the determination of local neuron topology. They represent an extension and application of the point pattern analysis (Diggle 1983), and are used here to calculate the statistical significance of certain arrangements of cells. The application of all these methods together revealed an interesting neuronal arrangement: type 1 neurons tend to remain at a certain distance from other type 1 neurons, whereas type 6 neurons lie close together.