ArticleFrontiers in neuroanatomy2014
All brains are made of this: a fundamental building block of brain matter with matching neuronal and glial masses.
Article in Frontiers in neuroanatomy, 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 28 papers.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
28 citing papers in PubMed, 81 citations in OpenAlex.
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- Neuron-specific homologous coding genes and non-coding regulatory regions are the most conserved amongst amniotes despite neuron-specific cell size diversity.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Cellular Composition of the Brain of a Northern Minke Whale.The Journal of comparative neurology · 2025Article
- Evolution of cellular architecture and function of the hippocampus: insights from the artificial selection experiment.Biology letters · 2025Article
- Statistical method accounts for microscopic electric field distortions around neurons when simulating activation thresholds.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Article
- A 3D atlas of functional human brain energetic connectome based on neuropil distribution.Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991) · 2023Article
- Regressive changes in sizes of somatosensory cuneate nucleus after sensory loss in primates.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2023Article
- Resting Rates of Blood Flow and Glucose Use per Neuron Are Proportional to Number of Endothelial Cells Available per Neuron Across Sites in the Rat Brain.Frontiers in integrative neuroscience · 2022Article
- Energy supply per neuron is constrained by capillary density in the mouse brain.Frontiers in integrative neuroscience · 2022Article
- Neuronal and non-neuronal scaling across brain regions within an intercross of domestic and wild chickens.Frontiers in neuroanatomy · 2022Article
- Structural changes in brains of patients with disorders of consciousness treated with deep brain stimulation.Scientific reports · 2021Article
- Microglial Density Alters Measures of Axonal Integrity and Structural Connectivity.Biological psychiatry. Cognitive neuroscience and neuroimaging · 2020Article
- Similar Microglial Cell Densities across Brain Structures and Mammalian Species: Implications for Brain Tissue Function.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2020Article
- Cholinergic Modulation of Glial Function During Aging and Chronic Neuroinflammation.Frontiers in cellular neuroscience · 2020Review
- Co-evolution of cerebral and cerebellar expansion in cetaceans.Journal of evolutionary biology · 2019Article
- White matter volume and white/gray matter ratio in mammalian species as a consequence of the universal scaling of cortical folding.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2019Article
- Detecting Microglial Density With Quantitative Multi-Compartment Diffusion MRI.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2019Article
- Evaluating the gray and white matter energy budgets of human brain function.Journal of cerebral blood flow and metabolism : official journal of the International Society of Cerebral Blood Flow and Metabolism · 2018Article
- Distribution of brain sodium long and short relaxation times and concentrations: a multi-echo ultra-high fieldScientific reports · 2018Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
2 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
How does the size of the glial and neuronal cells that compose brain tissue vary across brain structures and species? Our previous studies indicate that average neuronal size is highly variable, while average glial cell size is more constant. Measuring whole cell sizes in vivo, however, is a daunting task. Here we use chi-square minimization of the relationship between measured neuronal and glial cell densities in the cerebral cortex, cerebellum, and rest of brain in 27 mammalian species to model neuronal and glial cell mass, as well as the neuronal mass fraction of the tissue (the fraction of tissue mass composed by neurons). Our model shows that while average neuronal cell mass varies by over 500-fold across brain structures and species, average glial cell mass varies only 1.4-fold. Neuronal mass fraction varies typically between 0.6 and 0.8 in all structures. Remarkably, we show that two fundamental, universal relationships apply across all brain structures and species: (1) the glia/neuron ratio varies with the total neuronal mass in the tissue (which in turn depends on variations in average neuronal cell mass), and (2) the neuronal mass per glial cell, and with it the neuronal mass fraction and neuron/glia mass ratio, varies with average glial cell mass in the tissue. We propose that there is a fundamental building block of brain tissue: the glial mass that accompanies a unit of neuronal mass. We argue that the scaling of this glial mass is a consequence of a universal mechanism whereby numbers of glial cells are added to the neuronal parenchyma during development, irrespective of whether the neurons composing it are large or small, but depending on the average mass of the glial cells being added. We also show how evolutionary variations in neuronal cell mass, glial cell mass and number of neurons suffice to determine the most basic characteristics of brain structures, such as mass, glia/neuron ratio, neuron/glia mass ratio, and cell densities.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.