Morphology and responses to light of the somata, axons, and terminal regions of individual photoreceptors of the giant barnacle.
1. The median eye of the giant barnacle, B. nubilus, comprises four large photoreceptor neurones which are visible under the dissecting microscope for almost their entire length. We have studied the structure of, and the responses to light recorded in, the somata, axons, and terminal regions of these neurones.2. The photoreceptor somata, each 40-70 mum in diameter, extend numerous light-sensitive dendritic processes whose membranes form rhabdomeric microvilli. Recordings from the soma show that dim light evokes a steady, noisy depolarization; brighter light elicits a transient depolarization which decays to a maintained plateau, followed by a hyperpolarization when the light is turned off.3. Light-induced voltage changes spread decrementally along the photoreceptor axons, which average 10 mm in length and 25 mum in diameter. In distal parts of the axon, near the presynaptic terminals, depolarizations and hyperpolarizations can be as large as 50% or more of their values in the soma.4. There is no demonstrable electrical coupling between photoreceptor neurones as shown by simultaneous recordings from two receptor somata or axons.5. Each photoreceptor axon enters the mid line commissure of the supraoesophageal ganglion, bifurcates, and arborizes in a restricted zone of neuropil in each hemiganglion. The large size of the terminal processes of these neurones and their characteristic cytoplasmic inclusions enable one to trace them with the electron microscope as they branch in the neuropil.6. The terminal processes subdivide and end in 1-3 mum diameter branches which are the sites of apparently chemical synapses. Vesicle-containing, presynaptic loci on these processes of the receptor cell are invariably apposed to two post-synaptic processes from cells as yet unidentified.
D000818:Animals; D001369:Axons / Q000502:physiology / Q000648:ultrastructure; D066298:In Vitro Techniques; D008027:Light; D008564:Membrane Potentials; D008854:Microscopy, Electron; D010786:Photoreceptor Cells / Q000502:physiology* / Q000648:ultrastructure; D001468:Thoracica / Q000502:physiology*