Postnatal maturation of the layer III pyramidal neurons in the human prefrontal cortex: a quantitative Golgi analysis

In this study we examined the morphological maturation of the basal dendritic field of layer III pyramidal neurons located in the human dorsolateral prefrontal cortex in subjects ranging from 7.5 months after birth up to 27 years. The sections were stained with the Golgi-Cox method and the three-dimensional branching pattern was measured with a semi-automatic dendrite measuring system. Results show a rapid growth phase of the dendritic field from 7.5 months after birth up to one year. A marked increase in total dendritic length is observed, for which elongation of the terminal segments, longer intermediate segments and an increase in number of segments is an explanation. The dendritic length appears to have stabilized after one year, leading us to conclude that the postnatal morphological maturation of the layer III pyramidals does not continue well into childhood, but is completed at a much younger age. Additionally we analyzed the effect of varying section thickness on dendritic parameters and found no tendency for higher dendritic values with increasing section thickness for the range of thickness values of the histological sections used.