Little-known neurons of the medial wall: a literature review of pyramidal cells of the cingulate gyrus

ObjectiveThe purpose of this article is to provide an overview of the current state of knowledge of poorly understood and underresearched neuroanatomy of selected pyramidal cells of the medial wall of the cingulate gyrus.MethodsA literature review was performed; and separate computerized literature searches of PubMed, Science Direct, Cochrane Library, Science Citation Index, SCOPUS, CINAHL, and the World Wide Web were used for each cell type using individual set time scales for the discovery of each cell. A narrative overview of the literature was developed using information from searches of computerized databases and authoritative texts.DiscussionThe medial walls of the cerebral hemispheres, notably the cingulate gyri, contain species-specific neuron fields that to date are not well known within the scientific community and yet have been implicated as the underlying cause of such varying conditions as dysgraphia and autism in children and obsessive-compulsive disorder and Alzheimer disease in adults. As these neurons are late to develop both phylogenetically and ontogenetically, it has been suggested that they may be particularly vulnerable to stressors that potentially could be an underlying factor in a wide range of neurodevelopmental and neuropsychiatric disorders.ConclusionIt is considered that knowledge of these little-known pyramidal fields of the medial wall of the human brain is essential to the understanding of how the brain functions both in sickness and in health.