Volume estimation of the rabbit thalamus. Stereological microanatomical study.

Disclosure. The authors declare no conflicting interests, and this study was not supported or funded by any drug company. T he thalamus is the connection center of the brain. All synaptic impulses except olfactory are formed in the thalamus. Its current significance is its designation as the source of some diseases. Recent research shows that the thalamus has a critical role in schizophrenia 1 with changes in the volume and neuronal number in the thalamus in schizophrenia patients. 1 Total and individual volumetric estimation on the thalamus is also performed as much as investigations of the thalamic neuron number in schizophrenia. 1 Because of this finding, we aimed to identify a simple method for the rapid volume estimation on the rabbit thalamus in vitro on glass slides. The volume unit of the rabbit thalamus was measured in cubic centimeters. In vivo and in vitro volume of the brain compartments could be accurately, efficiently, cheaply, and simply estimated by the Cavalieri method in unbiased detail. This study was carried out at the Afyon Kocatepe University, Afyonkarahisar, Turkey in 2010. The experimental design was the volume estimation of the left half of the thalamus on brains of 7 rabbits (1-1.5 years, 3-4 kg) by stereological volume measurement utilizing the Cavalieri principle. We obtained permission from the Local Ethics Committee for Animal Experiments of Afyon Kocatepe University. The animals were housed and all surgical operations performed in the Laboratory The animals were anesthetized with isoflurane and decapitated. The scalp skin of the rabbits was dissected under anesthesia from the median line. The soft tissue on the upper part of the calvary was retracted, and the skull dissected from the midline to where it reached the brain. Brains were quickly removed from the cranial cavity. The cerebellum was separated from the cerebrum and the brain tissues. The brain substructures were attentively dissected under a 4x loop microscope, and the specimens fixed in neutral buffered 10% formalin for 2 days. Each thalamus was measured before and after formalin fixation. The hemispheres were separated with a microtome blade from the midline after immersion fixation. The thalamus of the rabbit brain was easy to hold. After the total extirpation of the diencephalon, the thalamus was carefully dissected from the sulcus thalamo caudatus and sulcus transversus commissurae posterioris, and then separated from both the nucleus caudatus and the tectum mesencephali. The thalamic region was extracted gently to avoid …