Caracterização citoarquitetônica, morfométrica e estereológica da coluna posterior cinzenta da medula espinal do sagui (callithrix jacchus): um comparativo morfológico entre sexos e diferentes idades

Abstract

The marmoset (Callithrix jacchus) is a small primate native to northeastern Brazil and has been used in research models worldwide. A marmoset spinal cord has as its main characteristics the typical marrow of mammals. This spinal cord similarity to other primates and humans, as well as ease of handling, short and rapidcolony management, allows marmosets to be increasingly used as alternative primate models in biomedical research.Although we found several studies associated with the brain of these primates, we have little information about possible morphochemical differences existing white matter and gray matter of the marmoset spinal cord. This shows a very important pioneering spirit in the face of such a scarce field of study. Thus, this paper aims to characterize the morphological differences between gender and age in the gray posterior column of the marmoset spinal cord.Analyzing Rexed slides using cytoarchitectonic techniques and verifying the main differences between the genera and age of the animals. The cytoarchitectonic characterization was obtained through immunohistochemistry, morphometry of the neuronal bodies of the posterior column of these primates, besides the stereological analysis being obtained through the Cavalieri method.The serotoninergic characteristic of the marmoset spinal cord obtained by immunohistochemistry shows a concentration of 5-HT reactive fibers in slides I, II and III, being corroborated by the literature in several animal models.The results of the present study allow us to achieve stability in terms of two-dimensional aspects between the “adult / young male” and “elderly male” groups and between the “adult / young male” and “adult / young female” groups, both on average of area (μm²) as well as blade by blade. This stability is also observed in the average volume in μm3 of white matter, gray matter, posterior column and total volume of marmoset spinal cord comparing the adult / young male group and the elderly male, as well as in the comparison between the gender groups, with exception of the total spinal cord volume which showed a significant increase (0.045) in the adult / young female group compared to the adult / young male group