Figure 3.
A and B: Electron micrographs demonstrating changes in the spine apparatus morphology in peritumorous neocortical tissue from human patients. A – A large spine (Sp) forming a perforated asymmetric synapse with a bouton (B) contains a hypertrophic spine apparatus (asterisk). B – Another spine (Sp) containing a spine apparatus with dilated cisterns of smooth endoplasmic reticulum (asterisks). This spine forms an asymmetric synapse with a bouton (B) containing vesicles that appear to be disrupted. In both A and B, the dense plate of the spine apparatus appears to give rise to filamentous material (arrows) that contacts the base of PSD. Scale bars = 0.2 μm in A and B. Electron micrograph in A is from Spacek (1987).