Fig. 3.

Confocal images of control hippocampal slices. A, The sickle-shaped pathway of mossy fibers stained with Micro Ruby in untreated/uncut rat P4 hippocampal slice cultures after 7 d in vitro. Thearrowhead marks the distalmost axons. Note that the path of the mossy fibers resembles the shape of the laminin pathway shown in Figures 1A and 4A.B, The pattern of the astrocyte network stained with GFAP antibodies (green), which does not predict the position of the mossy fibers. C, An untreated slice culture, which shows the typical position of the lesion immediately after surgery at the beginning of the CA3 region (the lesion is marked by an asterisk). The slice was in culture for 3 d, lesioned, fixed, and stained for the γ1 chain of laminin. The widening of the lesion is attributable to a histological processing artifact (DG, dentate gyrus). Scale bars, 100 μm.