Fig. 1.

Excitatory and inhibitory synapse densities decrease after ECM depletion in vitro. a Overlapping immunolabelling of presynaptic (red) and postsynaptic (green) markers was used to detect structurally complete synapses (yellow). b The density of glutamatergic (PSD95-VGLUT1) and GABAergic (gephyrin-VGAT) synapses was measured with reference to GABA immunoreactivity. Representative micrographs are shown. Scale bars, 30 µm. c Synapse density changes were calculated as differences with mean values of corresponding control experiments. Data are shown for each neuron examined (n ≥ 20 neurons per condition, results obtained from 5 independent experiments). GLU glutamate. Data are medians (lines inside boxes)/ means (filled squares inside boxes) ± IQR (boxes) with 10/ 90% ranks as whiskers. Open diamonds are data points. The asterisks indicate significant differences with control, based on Kruskal–Wallis tests (***p < 0.001, **p < 0.01). ns not significant