Study of Mean Diameter of Superior Cerebellar Peduncles in Bangladeshi Cadavers

Background: The neuronal organisation of the cerebellum has been studied in details by many researchers. But most of these have been performed on animals and diameter of superior cerebellar peduncle in humans remains inadequately studied. It has been observed by various workers that dimensions of different organs in Bangladeshi population vary from those ofWestern population. Objective: Aim of the present work was to measure diameter of superior cerebellar peduncle to make a standard for Bangladeshi population. Materials and Methods: This observational study was done by using nonprobability sampling technique and performed by examining 63 cerebellum. Out of them 40 postmortem human cerebellums were collected from Bangladeshi cadavers of both sexes (male 25 and female 15) aged 5 to 60 years and 23 cerebellums from caesarian section of intrauterine death cases of both sexes (male 14 and female 9) aged 34 to 41 weeks of gestation. Specimens were collected from dead bodies autopsied on different dates from April to September 2009 at the autopsy laboratory ofDepartment of Forensic Medicine and prenatal cases from Gynaecology and Obstetrics Department of Mymensingh Medical College & Hospital, Mymensingh. The collected specimens were grouped into three age groups Group A (28 to 42 weeks ofgestation), Group B (5 to 30 years) and Group C (31 to 60 years). The diameters of the superior cerebellar peduncles of both cerebellar hemispheres were measured by using slide calipers and expressed in millimeter (mm). The measurement was taken after fixation into 10% formol saline. Results: The mean (± SD) diameters of right superior cerebellar peduncle in Group A was 4.96 ± lAO, in Group B 6.83 ± 1046 and in Group C was 6.61 ± 1.34 mm. The mean (± SD) diameters of left superior cerebellar peduncle in Group A was 4.87 ± 1.25, in Group B 6.79 ± 1045 and in Group C 6048 ± 1.37 mm. Conclusion: No significant difference was observed between mean diameters ofright and left superior cerebellarpeduncles.


Introduction
The cerebellum is a very important part of central The human cerebellum is an enormously impressive nervous system and it is the portion of brain lying organ.'It is the largest part of hindbrain and located in behind and below the cerebrum.The cerebellum the posterior cranial fossa, behind the pons and the controls the smooth contraction of voluntary muscle medulla oblongata. 4 -7The cerebellum is a central part and carefully coordinates their action in the of the major circuit that links sensory to motor areas of maintenance of normal posture.l,2 the brain and is required for the coordination of fine movement.In health, it provides corrections during movement, which are the basis for the precision and accuracy and it is critically involved in motor learning and reflex modification.Cerebellum contains more nerve cells (neurons) than all the rest of the brain combined, on an average 50 billion neurons. 3 ,5,7Purkinje cells form the centre of a functional unit of the cerebellar cortex.The total number of neurons in human cerebellum during development decreased significantly from early maturity to old age. 8Studies of the structural-functional organisation of different parts of the cerebellum continue to be relevant.The variety of cerebellar functions and the conditions associated with their impairments have led to multilateral studies of this September 2016 organ.The neuronal organisation of the cerebellum has been studied in details by many researchers.But most of these studies have been performed on animals.Diameter of superior cerebellar peduncle in humans still remains inadequately studied.It has been observed by various workers that dimensions of different organs in Bangladeshi population vary from those of Western population.In this perspective we designed to study on diameter of superior cerebellar peduncle in humans to make a standard for Bangladeshi population.

Materials and Methods
This observational study was done by examining 63 cerebellums.Of these 40 were postmortem human cerebellums collected from Bangladeshi cadavers (male 25 and female 15) aged 5 to 60 years and 23 cerebellums were of dead fetuses from caesarian section (male 14 and female 9) aged 34 to 41 weeks of gestation.Specimen containing cerebellum was collected from dead bodies autopsied on different dates from April to September 2009 at the autopsy laboratory of Department of Forensic Medicine and Gynaecology and Obstetrics department of Mymensingh Medical College, Mymensingh.All the collected specimens of postnatal cases were from medico-legal cases (suicidal, homicidal, or accidental death) and the specimen of foetus from intra-uterine death cases (eclampsia, antepartum haemorrhage, obstructed labour).Grossly injured cases involving head-neck region and cerebellum of decomposed bodies were excluded.The specimen was labelled with a specimen number, recording age and sex of the cadaver and then fixed in 10% formalin solution, by floating freely in a suitable container with a lid.The specimen was allowed to fix for a period of one or two weeks.The present study was done with these fixed specimens in spite of some hardening and shrinking of tissue brought about by fixation.These could not be avoided at the brains because in fresh state these were too soft to handle.It took one to two weeks for these to get sufficiently hard to allow normal handling and dissection to be carried out.The collected samples were divided into three groups -Group A (34 to 41 weeks of gestation), Group B (5 to 30 years) and Group C (31 to 60 years).Measurement was taken after fixation in 10% formol saline.The diameters of the superior cerebellar peduncles of both cerebellar hemispheres were measured by using slide calipers and expressed in millimeter (mm).Appropriate statistical analysis was done using computer based statistical package, SPSS  In the present study, it was found that the mean (±SD) diameters of right superior cerebellar peduncle in Group A was 4.96 ± 1.40, in Group B 6.83 ± 1.46 and in Group C 6.61 ± 1.34 mm.In this study it was also found that statistically there was no significant difference between mean diameters of right superior cerebellar peduncle of male and female.Very few studies were found to compare the findings of our study.Szabó et al 9 also observed that there was no significant difference between cerebellar volumes of male and female.
In present study, it was found that the mean (±SD) diameter of left superior cerebellar peduncle in Group A was 4.87 ± 1.25, in Group B 6.79 ± 1.45 and in Group C 6.48 ± 1.37 mm respectively.In the present study it was also found that statistically there was no significant difference between mean diameters of left superior cerebellar peduncles of male and female.It was also observed in the present study that there was statistically no significant difference between mean diameters of right and left superior cerebellar peduncles.It is consistent with the findings of Szabó et al. 9 The result of the present study will enrich the information pool on diameter of superior cerebellar peduncle of Bangladeshi people.To establish a standard for Bangladeshi people, further study is required by using large number of samples from different parts of Bangladesh.

(
Statistical Package for Social Science) 14.0 to evaluate the significance of variance between the different findings.

Table V :
Comparison of mean diameters of superior cerebellar peduncles between right and left sides