IMMUNOCYTOCHEMICAL AND ELECTRON-MICROSCOPE OBSERVATIONS ON ASTROGLIALINTERLAMINAR PROCESSES IN THE PRIMATE NEOCORTEX

At variance with the rat, previous observations disclosed the presence of long interlaminar astroglial processes in the cerebral cortex of a dult nonhuman primates, To examine its presence in human cerebral cort ex, samples of frontal and temporal cerebral cortices were obtained du ring programmed brain surgery from a young patient with an intraventri cular astrocytoma, and from one young and two adult patients with fron tal and temporal lobe focal epilepsy, respectively, Samples of the vis ual cortex were also obtained at an autopsy of an 84-year-old woman wi thout any known neurological disease, Brain tissues were processed for GFAP-IR immunocytochemistry, Long, interlaminar, GFAP-IR astroglial p rocesses of usually 300-500 mu m, but occasionally reaching almost 1,0 00 mu m, were observed, These processes resembled those previously des cribed in the cerebral cortex of adult New World monkeys, Available da ta suggest that they may represent a predominant characteristic in pos tnatal primate cerebral cortex, EM analysis of club-like endings discl osed a multilamellar organization of GFAP-IR intermediate filaments, a nd the presence of mitochondria and amorphous, electron dense material , Their possible function is yet to be determined. (C) 1997 Wiley-Liss , Inc.