Histological Aspects of Cerebrum and Cerebellum in Adult Male and Female Mongoose (Herpestes edwardsii)

Mongooses are small carnivores residing in different regions from Africa to southeast Asia. The Indian gray mongoose (Herpestes Edwardsii) is one of the mongoose species that is mostly found in southern Asia particularly India and the south of Iran. Anatomical studies on the animal's brain have always been of interest to the scientist due to its high importance in various branches of biology, such as zoology, veterinary medicine and ethology.

Our study aimed to enrich the current data pool by providing a histological description of the mongoose’s brain. The present study was conducted to investigate the histomorphologic and histomorphomet- ric aspects of cerebrum and cerebellum of the Indian grey mongoose.

For this purpose, eight adult mongooses were considered, which were in an end-stage disease or the status of approaching death. In the following, after removing the skull, the brain structure was accurately dissected and placed in 10% buffered formalin. The samples were embedded in paraffin, cut into serial sections and stained using standard Hematoxylin and Eosin protocol.

In this study, the thickness of the white matter and cortex layers in the cerebrum and cerebellum, the number of neurons and neuroglia cells per unit area, and morphological features of tissue of the organs were measured and recorded. The results of cell count showed that the cell density of neurons in female and neuroglia in male were higher, significantly (P ≤ 0.05). Also in the cerebellum, the Purkinje cells were oval to round and were very close to the granular layer.

Despite minor differences, it could be concluded that the general morphologic and mor- phometric characteristics of cerebrum and cerebellum for mongoose are similar to the other animals. Although the study of these features has not been done in a wild carnivore so far, these features can be considered as an intermediate between rodents and human.