Figure - PMC

Skip to main content

An official website of the United States government

Here's how you know

Here's how you know

Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.

Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( ) or https:// means you've safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

View full-text article in PMC

. 2014 Sep 7;15:105. doi: 10.1186/1471-2202-15-105

Search in PMC
Search in PubMed
View in NLM Catalog
Add to search

© Del Cid-Pellitero and Garzón; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2014

This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.

PMC Copyright notice

Cellular contacts established by Hcrt1/OxA-containing axons in the ventral tegmental area. (A) Hcrt1/OxA-immunoreactivity is seen in large dense-cored vesicles (ldcv), dense-cored vesicles (dcv) and in the cytoplasm of a varicosity (Hcrt1/OxA-V) that makes an asymmetric synapse (curved arrow) with a Fluorogold-labeled dendrite (FG-den). The FG-den is identified by its content in DAB-immunoperoxidase reaction product (black arrows). (B) Hcrt1/OxA-V establishes an asymmetric synapse (curved arrow) with a FG-dendrite that receives convergent input from an unlabeled axon terminal (Ter). (C) A VTA dendrite (Den) receives a synaptic contact (curved arrow) from an Hcrt1/OxA-immunoreactive varicosity (Hcrt1/OxA-V) and an unlabeled Ter. (D) Hcrt1/OxA-T makes an asymmetric synapse (curved arrow) on an unlabeled Den. Hcrt1/OxA-T contains translucent small synaptic vesicles (ssv) near the synaptic specialization while dcv are far from the synapse. (E) Bar graph showing the relative percentage of appositional and synaptic contacts (asymmetric) established by Hcrt1/OxA-boutons with unlabeled- (un) or FG-labeled (FG) dendrites according to the type of axonal bouton (varicosity, diameter < 0.7 μm or axon terminal, diameter ≥ 0.7 μm) in the ventral tegmental area. Mean percentages and standard errors were calculated based on the numbers obtained from 102 Hcrt1/OxA-immunoreactive boutons in 14 vibratome sections from six rat brains. (F) Bar graph showing the percentage distribution of unlabeled and Fluorogold-labeled (FG) dendrites of different sizes receiving asymmetric synapses (n = 22) from Hcrt1/OxA-immunolabeled axonal boutons (terminals and varicosities; total sample: 616 boutons) in the ventral tegmental area. Mean percentages and standard errors were calculated based on the numbers obtained from the synapse-recipient 22 dendrites in 18 ultrathin sections from 6 rat brains. ANOVA (animal X dendritic size) was done to determine in those dendrites significant variations in the formation of asymmetric synapses with respect to their small (<0.5 mm), intermediate (0.5-1.0 mm) or large (>1.0 mm) diameters [*p < 0.05; post hoc Fisher test]. Scale bar, 0.2 μm.