[Ultrastructure of the cells of surviving hippocampal slices during the incubation process]

The dynamics of ultrastructural changes in the pyramidal neurons from the CA3 area of hippocampal slices was studied. It was shown that after 5 hours' incubation changes in the reticulum, nuclear envelope and mitochondria took place. No visible changes were seen in different synapses after incubation longer than 5 hours. It might be seen that the glial cells had their structural integrity after 30 hours. The data obtained were in a good agreement with our electrophysiological observations of neurons of the same area. The present data suggests that the brain slices in vitro are convenient objects for a parallel ultrastructural and electrophysiological study of the properties of neurons within a 1-5 hours incubation.