Figure 2.

The dentate gyrus of the rodent. (A) Dorsal view of the rodent hippocampus. (B) A schematic of the lamellar organization of the hippocampus. Two sections are shown in the coronal plane and horizontal plane as indicated by the arrows. (C) A coronal section from septal hippocampus is illustrated. MOL, molecular layer; GCL, granule cell layer; H, hilus. (D) A horizontal section from temporal hippocampus is illustrated. (E) The laminar organization of the DG is illustrated, with a single granule cell to show the orientation of dendrites and the granule cell axon, which is called a mossy fiber. The molecular layer is divided into three zones that are approximately the same width: outer molecular layer (light red); middle molecular layer (light blue); and inner molecular layer (light brown). The granule cell layer (dark gray) has several layers of densely-packed granule cells. Below the granule cell layer is a small subgranular zone (light green) containing hilar neurons and precursors of granule cells. The hilus includes the subgranular zone and a larger area that ends with area CA3c. The zone near CA3c is sometimes called the deep hilus (light gray).