engleski

Somatostatin neurons in the human prefrontal cortex

Somatostatin positive cells represent a major population of GABAergic neurons in the human cerebral cortex. Using double labelling immunofluorescence and RNAscope in situ hybridization we characterized the somatostatin cell population in the human prefrontal cortex (PFC). We analyzed histological slides from five adult specimens and evaluated the results in two regions of the PFC – Brodmann areas 9 and 14. There were no observable qualitative differences between the two areas and, therefore, the results presented are applicable to both regions of the PFC. After thorough qualitative analysis, we found that somatostatin cells in the supragranular layers were small (soma diameter of approximately 10 μm), had a high expression of somatostatin mRNA and a relatively low expression of somatostatin peptide. Furthermore, almost all of the supragranular somatostatin cells colocalized with calbindin, indicating that somatostatin and calbindin positive cells represent a single cell population in the supragranular layers. In the infragranular layers, somatostatin cells were large (soma diameter of approximately 20 μm) with complex dendritic morphology, typically had a lower expression of somatostatin mRNA and a high expression of somatostatin peptide, and did not express calbindin protein. All somatostatin cells were also NeuN positive, confirming that this is indeed a neuronal cell population. In conclusion, in the human PFC, supragranular and infragranular somatostatin cells represent two distinct subpopulations of somatostatin neurons.

GABAergic neurons ; somatostatin ; calbindin ; prefrontal cortex ; in situ hybridization ; immunohistochemistry

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