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

. 2015 Jun 10;7:9. doi: 10.3389/fnsyn.2015.00009

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

Copyright © 2015 High, Cole, Chen and Reese.

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution and reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

PMC Copyright notice

Surface renderings of individual elements bridging the synaptic cleft are color-coded according to size and shape in both an excitatory synapse (left) and an inhibitory synapse (right). Synaptic cleft elements at excitatory synapses fall into five categories: (A) S-shaped elements, asterisk indicates bulge (pink), (B) straight elements (yellow), (C) rook-shaped elements (blue), (D) sickle-shaped elements (purple), (E) doughnut-shaped elements, third indicates an element with three stalks (turquoise). Elements at inhibitory synapses fell into similar categories except the first category (A) has C-shaped elements and no elements fall into the fifth (E) category. Scale bar: 10 nm.