Credit: Image courtesy of the National Center for Microscopy and Imaging Research, UC San Diego.
Using serial block face scanning electron microscopy and other technologies, researchers created three-dimensional images of the neocortex of transgenic mice engineered to over-express the human protein, alpha-synuclein, and noted massively enlarged nerve terminals. In this image, an over-sized terminal (green) forms a synapse (red) with a dendritic spine (golden). A normal and smaller terminal (blue) forms a synapse with an adjacent spine on the same dendrite.