Statistical Analysis of Neuronal Populations

Abstract

The neuronal tree alters during development and aging and in several cases during disease and experimental treatment (e.g., Mrzljak et al., 1988; Coleman and Flood, 1987; De Ruiter and Uylings, 1987). In quantitative assessment, metric and topological analysis offer us important tools for estimating the type and size of these alterations. Topological analysis, dealing with the number of branchings and connectivity pattern of segments but not the physical size of individual neurons, has been dealt with in Chapter 10. Metric analysis, referring to neuronal size of individual neurons, has been dealt with in Chapter 9 of this book. In this chapter we discuss metric analysis further, with special attention to populations of neurons, and consider the variation between and within animals to estimate the number of animals and the number of neurons required for a statistical comparison.