The calcarine sulcus as an estimate of the total volume of human striate cortex: a morphometric study of reliability and intersubject variability.

The human primary visual cortex consists of a region buried in the calcarine sulcus and a region outside this sulcus on the free surface of the occipital lobe. Since the depth of the calcarine sulcus can be easily estimated in magnetic resonance images of the living human brain, in vivo morphometry of the human primary visual cortex would be feasible for studying development, intersubject variability and interhemispheric asymmetry if the sulcal depth or a correlated measure such as the intracalcarine surface area would be a precise and reliable estimate of the total volume of the human primary visual cortex. The correlations between total volume of the striate cortex and its intra- and extra-calcarine surface areas were therefore tested in the present observations. The total volume of the striate cortex and the surface areas of its intra-and extracalcarine portions were measured in Nissl-stained serial sections through 20 adult human hemispheres. The intra- and extracalcarine portions of the striate area are not significantly correlated with each other, but correlated with the total volume of the striate cortex. The intracalcarine surface area or the depth of the calcarine sulcus are thus useful parameters for in vivo estimates of the total size of the striate cortex.