Table 2. Calibration of counting methods against a serial section reconstruction (“gold standard”) or against other counting methods.

Structure	Embedding	Species	Method	Numerical Differences*	References
Against “Gold standard” (Exhaustive Counting)
DRG	Paraffin	Rat	2D: Floderus	+39%	Coggeshall et al., 1990
DRG	Paraffin	Rat	2D: Abercrombie	+25.5	Coggeshall et al., 1990
DRG	Paraffin	Rat	2D: Konigsmark	+27.8%	Coggeshall et al., 1990
DRG	Paraffin	Rat	2D: Devor	+29.8%	Coggeshall et al., 1990
DRG	Paraffin	Rat	2D: Empirical	-0.5%	Coggeshall et al., 1990
DRG	Paraffin	Rat	2D: Rose & Rohrlich	-30.3%	Coggeshall et al., 1990
DRG	Paraffin	Rat	All 2D Methods	-30 to +39%	Coggeshall et al., 1990
DRG	Paraffin	Rat	Physical Disector	±8% to 12%	Pover & Coggeshall, 1991
DRG	Paraffin	Rat	2D: Empirical	-3.2% to +1%	Pover & Coggeshall, 1991
DRG	Paraffin	Frog	2D Method	-8% to -30%	St Wecker & Farel, 1994
DRG	Paraffin	Frog	Physical Disector	±4% to -26%**	Popken & Farel, 1996
Trochlear nucleus	Paraffin	Chicken	Optical Disector	-22.8%	Hatton & von Bartheld, 1999
Trochlear nucleus	Paraffin	Chicken	2D Method	-9.1%	Hatton & von Bartheld, 1999
Trochlear nucleus	Paraffin	Chicken	Modified Optical Disector	-1.0%	Hatton & von Bartheld, 1999
DRG	Paraffin	Frog	Physical Disector	±4% to ±26%	Farel, 2002
Glomerulus	Resin	Mouse	Physical Disector	-1.7% [-17 to +17]	Basgen et al., 2006
Glomerulus	Resin	Mouse	2D Method	+10.2% [+1.2 to +20]	Basgen et al., 2006
Trochlear nucleus	Various	Chicken	Optical Disector	-26% to +0.7%	Ward et al., 2008
Substantia nigra	Paraffin	Mouse	Optical Disector	+5%	Basquet et al., 2009
Substantia nigra	Paraffin	Mouse	2D Method	-4%	Basquet et al., 2009
DRG	Epon	Rat	Physical Disector	±6 to -27% ***	Delaloye et al., 2009
IF Against Other Counting Methods
White matter	Paraffin	Various	IF vs. Optical Disector	±0	Bahney & von Bartheld, 2014
Cerebral cortex	Frozen	Chimpanzee	IF vs. Optical Disector	+5%	Miller et al., 2014
Various	Frozen	Chicken	IF vs. Optical Disector	±0	Ngwenya et al., 2017

Abbreviations: DRG, dorsal root ganglion; IF, isotropic fractionator; 2D, 2D Method; [ ], ranges.

^*Note that numerical differences are composed of both, potential biases as well as statistical variability.

^**In this study, the orientation of sectioning appeared to be correlated with the extent of numerical differences, a finding that has no stereological explanation and does not seem to have been replicated.

^***the larger deviation was seen only when the separating distance between consecutive pairs of sections was larger than 60 μm.