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. 1997 Jan 1;17(1):204–215. doi: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.17-01-00204.1997

Fig. 1.

Fig. 1.

Identification of the main types of neurons in the basal ganglia circuitry. Center, Schematic drawing of the main components comprising the basal ganglia and their glutamatergic synaptic innervation (Parent and Hazrati, 1995a,b).Left and right, IR-DIC images of neurons in different components of the basal ganglia. Str-PN, Medium-sized striatal principal neurons; Str-IN, large striatal putative cholinergic interneurons (∼2% of all striatal neurons); SNR, substantia nigra pars reticulata, putative GABAergic neurons; SNC, substantia nigra pars compacta, putative dopaminergic neurons; GP, globus pallidus neurons; STN, subthalamic nucleus neurons. The size of the somata of these basal ganglia neurons is in agreement with published morphological properties. Measured and published soma diameters were as follows: Str-PN, 13–16 μm (13 μm;Kawaguchi, 1993); Str-IN, 23–34 μm (27 μm;Kawaguchi, 1993); SNR, 20–25 μm longitudinal diameter × 10–15 μm transverse diameter (20 μm, Poirier et al., 1983); SNC, 20–25 μm (34 × 20 μm; Yung et al., 1991); GP, 31–43 μm × 14–23 μm (25–40 μm × 15–25 μm; Millhouse, 1986); andSTN, 10–15 μm (17 μm; Afsharpour, 1985).