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Zusammenfassung:
The basic principle of the most frequently used functional neuroimaging methods is the brain’s local dynamic regulation of blood flow. For a correct interpretation of neuroimaging results the structural and functional neurovascular coupling underlying this regulation must be well understood. Here we report quantitative anatomical data of the microvasculature in the macaque visual cortex.
Formalin-fixed frozen sections of 4 animals (M. mulatta) were processed for double fluorescence immunohistochemistry. Sections were incubated with anti-collagen type IV and DAPI to stain for vessels and cell nuclei. In one additional animal, the anti-collagen procedure was combined with cytochrome oxidase staining in V1. The length density (LD), surface density (SD), volume fraction (VF) and diameter (D) of the vessels were stereologically determined. Furthermore, synchrotron-based computed tomographies (SRCT) of formalin-fixed and barium sulfate-perfused brain samples from another 2 animals were used to corroborate the histological results.
In V1, the vascular density was highest in layer IVc- (LD 674.7 mm/mm3, SD 15.2 mm2/mm3, VF 2.6 , D 7.2 microns) and lowest in layer I (LD 461.5 mm/mm3, SD 10.9 mm2/mm3, VF 1.9 , D 7.5 microns). In all extrastriate visual areas analyzed (V2, V3, V4, V5), the vascular density was generally lower, and the difference between layer IV and the remaining layers was less prominent when compared to V1. These density values were similar compared to the ones tomographically obtained from SRCT. The vascular density in cytochrome oxidase rich blobs in V1 was 14 higher as compared to the interblob region.
In summary, V1 is different from all extrastriate areas analyzed with respect to the laminar vessel distribution and overall vascular density. Differences between extrastriate areas were negligible. The overall vascular volume fraction in visual cortex derived from immunostaining was approximately 2 , a value that was well reproduced by the SRCT.
