[Detection of giant axospinal synapses in the hippocampus on semithin sections]

A histological study of plastic semithin hippocampal sections after the treatment of myosin with tannic acid and detergent and then with subfragment-1 has shown the neuronal dendrites to be covered with dark spine-like thickenings. Electron microscopic analysis of the same preparations has revealed that the electron dense discrete formations represent synaptic terminals, situated on the dendrites with a definite periodicity. We discuss the use of such a method for the quantitative calculation of synapses in nerve tissue at the combined histological and electron microscopic levels of investigation.