Abstract
Stereological studies are more and more frequent in literature, particularly in the development/evolution, pathology, and neurosciences areas. The stereology challenge is to understand the structural inner three-dimensional arrangement based on the analysis of the structure slices only showing two-dimensional information. Cavalieri and Scherle's methods to estimate volume, and Buffon's needle problem, are commented in the stereological context. A group of actions is needed to appropriately quantify morphological structures (unbiased and reproducibly), e.g. sampling, isotropic and uniform randomly sections (Delesse's principle), and updated stereological tools (disector, fractionator, nucleator, etc). Through the correct stereology use, a quantitative study with little effort could be performed: efficiency in stereology means a minimum slices sample counting (little work), low cost (slices preparation), but good accuracy. In the present text, a short review of the main stereological tools is done as a background basis to non-expert scientists.
Highlights
Morphologists are traditionally interested in form and composition of structures in macro, meso, microscopic, and ultrastructural levels
Morphologists have benefited by the use of genetic and molecular techniques to help the understanding of their problems improving biological and biomedical researches
Questions concerning quantitative alterations of tissues, cells or cellular organelles, as well as a better correlation between morphology and function, need a quantitative approach to be well understood (Weibel 1989, Mayhew 1992, Roberts et al 2000, Andersen and Pakkenberg 2003)
Summary
Morphologists are traditionally interested in form and composition of structures in macro, meso, microscopic, and ultrastructural levels. The aim of the sampling design for stereology is to obtain the maximal amount of quantitative structural information at a given total cost or effort. Principles of such optimal designs and methods for generating them will be discussed. Spend time and/or money in order to increase the precision of the individual measurements is irrational in almost all studies emphasizing biological results This could be summarized by the sentence ‘‘do more less well’’ (Gundersen and Osterby 1981). It is possible to determine accurate quantities of morphological structures in tissue or cell levels mathematically enlarging the results by multiplying the measurement by the shrinkage and the compression factors previously determined (Mandarim-de-Lacerda et al 1987). Some questions in stereology are solved by, or benefits from parallel principles
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