title: Cytology of large neurons in the guinea pig dorsal cochlear nucleus contacting the inferior colliculus.
abstract: Large neurons in the dorsal cochlear nucleus of the guinea pig which project to the inferior colliculus were identified after injections of the neural tracer WGA-HRP. Retrograde labelled cells (pyramidal and giant neurons) in the dorsal cochlear nucleus were glycine and GABA immunonegative and showed a similar ultrastructure. Between 30 and 60% of their perimeter was covered by axo-somatic boutons, most of which (>50%) contained pleomorphic synaptic vesicles. Other boutons (about 40% of total) contained flat vesicles and few (5-6%) contained round vesicles, a characteristic of the excitatory cells innervating the inferior colliculus. Immunogold-cytochemistry, coupled to silver intensification, showed that more than 50% of axo-somatic pleomorphic boutons and over 90% of boutons containing flat and pleomorphic vesicles store glycine. Rare WGA-HRP labelled axo-somatic boutons containing flat-pleomorphic vesicles were seen on pyramidal and giant neurons. This suggests that a few inhibitory collicular terminals contact the excitatory large neurons in the dorsal cochlear nucleus.
authors.affiliation: Dipartimento di Biologia Evoluzionistica Sperimentale, Università di Bologna, Italy.
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Alibardi
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D017626:Cochlear Nucleus / Q000502:physiology* / Q000648:ultrastructure; D005260:Female; D006168:Guinea Pigs; D007150:Immunohistochemistry; D007245:Inferior Colliculi / Q000502:physiology* / Q000648:ultrastructure; D008297:Male; D009474:Neurons / Q000502:physiology* / Q000648:ultrastructure; D017729:Presynaptic Terminals / Q000502:physiology* / Q000648:ultrastructure; D018998:Wheat Germ Agglutinin-Horseradish Peroxidase Conjugate / Q000378:metabolism
chemical_list: D018998:Wheat Germ Agglutinin-Horseradish Peroxidase Conjugate