The cerebral cortex is composed of multiple cortical areas that exert a wide variety of brain functions. Although human brain neurons are genetically and areally mosaic, the three-dimensional structural differences between neurons in different brain areas or between the neurons of different individuals have not been delineated. Here we report a nanometer-scale geometric analysis of brain tissues of the superior temporal gyrus of schizophrenia and control cases. The results of the analysis and a comparison with results for the anterior cingulate cortex indicated that (1) neuron structures are significantly dissimilar between brain areas and that (2) the dissimilarity varies from case to case. The structural diverseness was mainly observed in terms of the neurite curvature that inversely correlates with the diameters of the neurites and spines. The analysis also revealed the geometric differences between the neurons of the schizophrenia and control cases. The schizophrenia cases showed a thin and tortuous neuronal network compared with the controls, suggesting that the neuron structure is associated with the disorder. The area dependency of the neuron structure and its diverseness between individuals should represent the individuality of brain functions.

大脑皮层由多个皮层区域组成，这些皮层区域发挥着各种各样的脑功能。尽管人脑神经元在遗传和区域上都是镶嵌的，但尚未描述不同大脑区域的神经元之间或不同个体的神经元之间的三维结构差异。在这里，我们报告精神分裂症和控制案例的颞上回大脑组织的纳米级几何分析。分析结果以及与前扣带回皮层的结果进行比较的结果表明：（1）脑区域之间的神经元结构明显不同，并且（2）情况因情况而异。主要通过与神经突和棘突的直径成反比的神经突曲率来观察结构的多样性。分析还揭示了精神分裂症患者神经元与对照组病例之间的几何差异。与对照相比，精神分裂症病例显示出薄且弯曲的神经元网络，表明神经元结构与该疾病有关。神经元结构的区域依赖性及其在个体之间的多样性应代表脑功能的个性。