[Morphometric studies of neonatal rat cerebral cortex explant cultures]

The following parameters were investigated quantitatively in cerebrocortex explants of rat brain after cultivation periods of 2, 4, 7, 10 and 15 days in vitro by light microscopical methods. 1. The relationship between the sizes of explants and growth area was found to be statistically significant by correlation and regression analysis of the area index calculated from growth area and explant area following cultivation periods of two and four days in vitro. A significant increase in the cultivation area was also states (exception: 7th--10th). 2. The presence and changing percentage in the number of different cell populations within the growth area showed good correlations to previous results obtained from cerebellum explants in vitro. Problems of adaptive changes of the astrocytes to the in-vitro-conditions are discussed.