Scanning Electron Microscopy Study of Cerebellar Synaptic Junctions

Conventional and high resolution scanning electron microscopy have been applied to trace short cerebellar nerve circuits and to explore the outer and inner surfaces of spine, glomerular and axodendritic synapses. Samples of teleost fishes (Arius spixii and Salmo Trutta) cerebellar cortex were processed according to the slicing technique for conventional scanning electron microscopy (SEM), ethanol cryofracturing technique and freeze-fracture scanning electron microscopy (FFSEM) (Castejón, 1988). Primate (Rhesus monkey) cerebellar cortex was processed for high resolution scanning electron microscopy (Castejón and Apkarian, 1990), according to the protocol of delicate specimen preparation (Peters, 1980). Observations were made in JEOL 100B with (ASID), scanning attachment ISI DS-130 equiped with LaB6 emitter and Hitachi S-900 SEM with a cold cathode field emitter. Micrographs for HRSEM were soft focus printed to reduce instrumental noise (Peters, 1985). A comparison was made of gold-palladium and chromium coating cerebellar samples.The slicing technique and the cryofracture process exposed the neuronal outer surface revealing hidden surface ensheathed by neuroglial cells.