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Neocortical maturation during adolescence: change in neuronal soma dimension.
Journal article

Neocortical maturation during adolescence: change in neuronal soma dimension.

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  • 2008-09-10
Published in:
  • Brain and cognition. - 2009
Adolescent
Adolescent Development
Aging
Cell Count
Cell Size
Cerebral Cortex
Child
Female
Humans
Linear Models
Male
Neocortex
Neurons
Young Adult
English During adolescence, cognitive abilities increase robustly. To search for possible related structural alterations of the cerebral cortex, we measured neuronal soma dimension (NSD = width times height), cortical thickness and neuronal densities in different types of neocortex in post-mortem brains of five 12-16 and five 17-24 year-olds (each 2F, 3M). Using a generalized mixed model analysis, mean normalized NSD comparing the age groups shows layer-specific change for layer 2 (p < .0001) and age-related differences between categorized type of cortex: primary/primary association cortex (BA 1, 3, 4, and 44) shows a generalized increase; higher-order regions (BA 9, 21, 39, and 45) also show increase in layers 2 and 5 but decrease in layers 3, 4, and 6 while limbic/orbital cortex (BA 23, 24, and 47) undergoes minor decrease (BA 1, 3, 4, and 44 vs. BA 9, 21, 39, and 45: p = .036 and BA 1, 3, 4, and 44 vs. BA 23, 24, and 47: p = .004). These data imply the operation of cortical layer- and type-specific processes of growth and regression adding new evidence that the human brain matures during adolescence not only functionally but also structurally.
Language
  • English
Open access status
closed
Identifiers
Persistent URL
https://sonar.rero.ch/global/documents/20058
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