(A) Volume distribution of the mouse dentate gyrus in coronal sections. (B) Estimates of the CE for different sampling intervals. For this structure, CE estimates that approach the empirically estimated CEs (squares, ▪) are obtained using m = 1 for smooth distributions (open circles, ○), whereas CE estimates using m = 0 for irregular distributions (triangles, ▵) overestimate estimator variance (for details regarding m, see The Precision of Estimates in Stereological Analyses [West 2012b]). Notably, for structures that show this type of quantitative behavior, estimator variance will be very small, even if only a few sections are analyzed. Using every 20th of the ∼120 sections available—that is, only five or six sections—will return estimates of the volume of this structure with a CE of <4%. (Courtesy of Lutz Slomianka.)