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The effects of denervation and stimulation upon synaptic ultrastructure
Author(s) -
Rutledge L. T.
Publication year - 1978
Publication title -
journal of comparative neurology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.855
H-Index - 209
eISSN - 1096-9861
pISSN - 0021-9967
DOI - 10.1002/cne.901780107
Subject(s) - stimulation , neuroscience , biology , synaptic plasticity , denervation , cortex (anatomy) , synaptic vesicle , cerebral cortex , neuroplasticity , synaptic cleft , central nervous system , anatomy , neurotransmitter , vesicle , membrane , receptor , biochemistry , genetics
Quantitative studies of synaptic ultrastructure were made in the upper layers of cat cerebral cortex. Tissues were from intact cortex and from long‐term (chronic) undercut cortex with or without electrical stimulation. The synaptic effects of chronic electrical stimulation of denervated cortex are most readily understood as growth and remodeling of synaptic elements. Associated with chronic stimulation were increases in: symmetric membrane contacts; areas of round and flat vesicle containing terminals; dendritic shaft contacts; and synaptic contact lengths. Even without stimulation there were indications of synaptic plasticity in denervated cortex; compared with intact cortex, synapses having symmetric membrane contacts showed an increase in bouton area and an increase in synaptic contacts on dendritic shafts. These data are consistent with the observations of others in which axonal terminal growth occurred after deafferentation. But it appears that chronic electrical stimulation in the adult nervous system promotes significantly more plasticity than occurs without stimulation. In a functional sense stimulation in the present experiments produced effective inhibition which did not occur with denervation alone. Thus the plasticity observed with stimulation had both structural and functional components.