Quantification of vesicular zinc in the rat brain

By means of the Neo-Timm method it has recently been shown that zinc is present in a fraction of the round clear synaptic vesicles of certain boutons located primarily in telencephalic structures (Pérez-Clausell and Danscher 1985). It is believed that this zinc belongs to a fraction of the total brain zinc which is histochemically active (Frederickson and Danscher 1988) in that it can be visualized by means of e.g. the Neo-Timm and selenium methods (autometallography). The present study is based on the suggestion that the autometallographically developed zinc patterns represent a histochemical quantitative expression of this fraction of the total brain zinc. The different colours of the zinc pattern reflect local variations in the concentration of zinc containing vesicles. Large boutons with a high content of stained vesicles will show up darkly because of fusion of adjoining silver grains while smaller boutons with fewer zinc containing vesicles give rise to yellow staining of various shades. We have exploited this difference in staining of pattern by applying computerized optic densitometry to light microscopic sections treated according to the Neo-Timm and the selenium methods, respectively.