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Variation In Brain Morphology Of Intertidal Gobies: A Comparison Of Methodologies Used To Quantitatively Assess Brain Volumes In Fish, Gemma E. White, Culum Brown

Veterinary Science and Medicine Collection

When correlating brain size and structure with behavioural and environmental characteristics, a range of techniques can be utilised. This study used gobiid fishes to quantitatively compare brain volumes obtained via three different methods; these included the commonly used techniques of histology and approximating brain volume to an idealised ellipsoid, and the recently established technique of X-ray micro-computed tomography (micro-CT). It was found that all three methods differed significantly from one another in their volume estimates for most brain lobes. The ellipsoid method was prone to over- or under-estimation of lobe size, histology caused shrinkage in the telencephalon, and although micro-CT …