Microchemical Architecture of Human Isocortex

Abstract

DEFINITIVE knowledge of the biochemistry of cerebral cortex is not commensurate with that of its microscopic anatomy or neurophysiological properties. This can partly be attributed to the relatively delayed development of neurochemistry as a whole, and especially of a precise methodology for detailed study of its molecular organization. However, the pioneering development of quantitative histochemistry by K. Linderstrøm-Lang and H. Holter of the Carlsberg Laboratories in Copenhagen and the systematic elaborations and refinements thereof due particularly to two of their distinguished American students, O. H. Lowry and D. Glick, have provided the requisite technology for microneurochemistry. These developments, in turn, have enabled investigations on the molecular and enzymatic architecture of numerous anatomical substituents of mammalian brain including the cerebral cortex of the rat,^1-5 rabbit,⁶ and monkey.^7,8 There is, nevertheless, a particular lack of systematic information concerning the biochemistry of the cortex of man in