AUTHOR’S ABSTRACT OF THIS PAPER ISSUED 
BY THE BIBLIOGRAPHIC SERVICE, MARCH 30 
COMPARATIVE STUDIES ON THE GROWTH OF THE 
CEREBRAL CORTEX 
Vil. ON THE INFLUENCE OF STARVATION AT AN EARLY AGE UPON 
THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CEREBRAL CORTEX. ALBINO RAT 
NAOKI SUGITA 
From The Wistar Institute of Anatomy and Biology 
TWO CHARTS 
1. INTRODUCTION 
Investigations on the influence of partial or complete starva- 
tion upon the growth of the body under various conditions have 
been made by many authors, and it has long been known that of 
all the organs the brain is least affected in weight by underfeeding 
while, in younger animals in active growth, the brain weight may 
even increase during severe underfeeding. ‘These facts were 
early observed by Chossat (’48) in pigeons, Falck (’54) in dogs 
and Voit (66) in cats, later by Bechterew (95) in kittens and 
puppies and Lassarew (’97) in guinea-pigs, and recently by 
Hatai (04, ’08, 715), Donaldson (’11), Jackson (15 a, 715 b), and 
others working in the albino rat. Jackson made experiments 
with complete and partial starvation on adult albino rats and 
also held the young albino rats at constant body weight for a 
considerable period by partial underfeeding, and in all his experi- 
ments the brain was found to be only slightly affected in weight. 
Hatai underfed young rats so as to cause a reduction of 30 per 
cent in total body weight, while the average loss in brain weight 
was only 5 per cent. According to Donaldson’s experiments on 
the young albino rats (thirty days old) under moderate under- 
feeding for three weeks, it was found that the underfed are on the 
average 41.2 per cent less in body weight than the controls and 
nevertheless only 7.7 per cent less in brain weight. 
177 
THE JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE NEUROLOGY, VOL. 29, No. 3 
JUNE, 1918 
