Distribution of magnetic remanence carriers in the human brain
Stuart A. Gilder, Michael Wack, Leon Kaub, Sophie C. Roud, Nikolai Petersen, Helmut Heinsen, Peter Hillenbrand, Stefan Milz & Christoph Schmitz
Scientific Reports volume 8, Article number: 11363 (2018) | Download Citation
Abstract
That the human brain contains magnetite is well established; however, its spatial distribution in the brain has remained unknown. We present room temperature, remanent magnetization measurements on 822 specimens from seven dissected whole human brains in order to systematically map concentrations of magnetic remanence carriers. Median saturation remanent magnetizations from the cerebellum were approximately twice as high as those from the cerebral cortex in all seven cases (statistically significantly distinct, p = 0.016). Brain stems were over two times higher in magnetization on average than the cerebral cortex. The ventral (lowermost) horizontal layer of the cerebral cortex was consistently more magnetic than the average cerebral cortex in each of the seven studied cases. Although exceptions existed, the reproducible magnetization patterns lead us to conclude that magnetite is preferentially partitioned in the human brain, specifically in the cerebellum and brain stem.
Acknowledgements
We thank Josef Jezek for advice on the statistical analyses. This work was kindly funded by the Volkswagen Foundation Experiment! program.
Author information
Affiliations
Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Ludwig-Maximilians University of Munich, Theresienstrasse 41, Munich, 80333, Germany
Stuart A. Gilder, Michael Wack, Leon Kaub, Sophie C. Roud & Nikolai Petersen
Department of Psychiatry, Psychosomatics and Psychotherapy, Center of Mental Health, University Hospital Würzburg, Würzburg, 97080, Germany
Helmut Heinsen
Ageing Brain Study Group, Department of Pathology, LIM 22, University of São Paulo Medical School, São Paulo, Brazil
Helmut Heinsen
Department of Neuroanatomy, Ludwig-Maximilians University of Munich, Pettenkoferstrasse 11, Munich, 80336, Germany
Peter Hillenbrand, Stefan Milz & Christoph Schmitz
Contributions
H.H. provided the brain specimens to C.S., S.M. cut all brains with assistance from P.H., L.K., S.R., S.G. and M.W. S.G. made all magnetic measurements with assistance from P.H., L.K., S.R., M.W. and S.M. Data treatment and interpretation were done by M.W., S.R. and S.G. with contributions from C.S., S.M., P.H., L.K. and N.P. Figures were drafted by S.R., S.G., S.M. and M.W. S.G. wrote the paper and all authors read and contributed comments to the work.
Competing Interests
The authors declare no competing interests.
Corresponding author
Correspondence to Stuart A. Gilder.
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