DEVELOPMENTAL PATTERNS IN THE CYTOARCHITECTURE OF THE HUMAN CEREBRAL-CORTEX FROM BIRTH TO 6 YEARS EXAMINED BY CORRESPONDENCE-ANALYSIS

This paper uses correspondence analysis to examine the developmental p atterns in the cytoarchitecture of the human cerebral cortex from birt h to 72 months. The study is based on data collected by the late J, L. Conel, which consist of over 4 million individual measurements of six microscopic neuroanatomic features for each of six cortical layers in 46 cytoarchitecturally distinct regions, We analyze 1,727 profiles of development over eight age-points (term birth, 1, 3, 6, 15, 24, 48, a nd 72 postnatal months) resulting from the combinations of neuroanatom ic feature, cortical layer, and brain cytoarchitectural region in the Conel data, The profiles for any given combination of feature and laye r are found to be remarkably similar in all regions of the brain, and therefore the developmental patterns of different cytoarchitectural re gions are not distinguishable from one another, Developmental change i s most rapid at the earlier stages; of the total change in profile pat terns observed, more than one-third occurs between birth and 6 months, about one-third occurs between 6 and 15 months, and less than one thi rd occurs between 15 and 72 months, The majority of the variance in de velopmental profiles is accounted for by the six microscopic, neuroana tomic features, Correspondence analysis shows that Conel's data are hi ghly consistent and reliable.