The cerebral cortex is a clearly structured part of the nervous system. Currently, the structural and functional unit of the cerebral cortex is considered a module that cannot comprehensively describe the principle of its structural and functional organization at different levels: from macroscopic to microscopic. Folium is one of the structures that can be considered the structural unit of the cerebellum. The purpose of the work is to study morphometric parameters of human cerebral folia, to identify the limits and patterns of individual variability in the quantitative parameters of the cerebral cortex in its phylogenetically different regions. Material and methods. Morphological study was performed on 50 cerebella of people who died from causes not related to pathology of the central nervous system. The morphometric study was conducted using the Image Tool program. The height, maximum and minimum width and difference between them, the length of the ganglion layer, the number of Purkinje cells, the density of the Purkinje cells (the number of cells per 1 mm of the ganglion layer), the average distance between the centers of the Purkinje cells were determined on each individual folium of the cerebellum. 100-150 folia of gray matter in each cerebellum were investigated. Results and discussion. Morphometric examination of the cerebellar folia revealed that the average height of the folium was 1727.94 ± 55.94 μm, the minimum width of the folium was 1514.64 ± 49.04 μm, the maximum width of the folium was 1794.94 ± 58.10 μm, the ratio "Height / maximum width" – 1.009 ± 0.03, length of ganglionic layer was 3992.52 ± 129.26 μm, difference of maximum and minimum width of the folium was 25.09 ± 0.81 %. The number of Purkinje cells can vary from 1 to 55, the frequency distribution of folia with different amounts of Purkinje cells is asymmetric, dominated by folia with a small number of Purkinje cells (3 to 16). Conclusion. Therefore, the folium is a permanent structure of the cerebellum, which can be regarded as a structural or structural and functional unit of the cerebellum. The folium always includes gray matter – the fold of the cortex and sometimes has its own central core of white matter. However, the structure of the folia may be significantly different, which is reflected in the high variability of the morphometric parameters of the cerebellar folia.
Keywords: cerebellum, cerebellar folium, structural unit
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