Before revision:  Examination of the determinant of the local metric tensor of the diffeomorphic mapping between each subject's ex-vivo MRI and resultant Nissl reconstruction allows an unprecedented local quantification of geometrical distortions resulting from the histological processing, showing a slight shrinkage, a median linear\pm  scale change of ~-1\% in going from the ex-vivo MRI to the tape-transfer generated histological image data\pm  .
After revision:  Examination of the determinant of the diffeomorphic transformations involved. There are two major steps in the histology process with associated scale distortions (a) brain perfusion (b) histological sectioning and reassembly. By mapping the final image stacks to the ex-vivo MRI and resultant Nissl reconstruction allows an unprecedented local quantification of geometrical distortions resulting from the histological processing, showing a slight shrinkage, a median linear\pm scale change of ~-1\% in going from the ex-vivo MRI to the tape-transfer generated histological image data\pm .