A tiny detail visible on certain neurons at the limit of resolution in light microscopy went in 130 years of neuroscience research through a dazzling career from suspicious staining artifact to what we recognize today as a complex postsynaptic molecular machine: the dendritic spine.This chapter deals with techniques to make spines visible. The original technique, Golgi silver staining, is still being used today. Electron microscopy and automated field ion beam scanning electron microscopy are ultrahigh resolution techniques, albeit specialized. Other methods are intracellular injection, uptake of dyes, and recently the exploitation of genetically modified animals in which certain neurons express fluorescent protein in all their processes, including the nooks and crannies of their dendritic spines.
Keyphrases
- electron microscopy
- single molecule
- deep learning
- spinal cord
- living cells
- high throughput
- gold nanoparticles
- flow cytometry
- machine learning
- high resolution
- quantum dots
- palliative care
- label free
- magnetic resonance imaging
- optical coherence tomography
- high speed
- medical students
- magnetic resonance
- amino acid
- reactive oxygen species
- computed tomography
- small molecule
- endoplasmic reticulum
- spinal cord injury