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A Systematic Random Sampling Scheme Optimized to Detect the Proportion of Rare Synapses in the Neuropil

2009; Frontiers Media; Volume: 3; Linguagem: Inglês

10.3389/conf.neuro.01.2009.11.069

1662-4548

Martin Kevan,

Functional Brain Connectivity Studies

Event Abstract Back to Event A Systematic Random Sampling Scheme Optimized to Detect the Proportion of Rare Synapses in the Neuropil Nuno Macarico-da-Costa1*, Klaus Hepp1 and Kevan A. Martin1 1 Universidade do Porto, Instituto de Biologia Molecular Unidade de Morfofisiologia do Sistema Somatosensitivo, Portugal Synapses can only be morphologically identified by electron microscopy, which is very labor and time consuming. When quantitative estimates are required for pathways that contribute a small proportion of synapses to the neuropil, the problems of accurate sampling are severe and inevitably the total time required become prohibitive. Here we present a sampling method dedicated to counting the percentage of rare synapses in the neuropil using a large sample (~1000 sampling sites), with the strong constraint of doing it in reasonable times. The strategy, which uses the unbiased physical disector technique, resembles that used in particle physics to detect rare events.We have applied our method to count the densities of thalamic synapses in the primary visual cortex of the cat. The thalamic axons were labeled in vivo by injections of Biotinylated Dextran-amine into the A laminae of the dorsal lateral geniculate nucleus of anaesthetized cats. The density of synapses formed by labeled dLGN boutons was measured using the physical disector method. Our results show that we could count labeled synapses, even when they represent only 0.2% of all the synapses in the neuropil. Conference: 11th Meeting of the Portuguese Society for Neuroscience, Braga, Portugal, 4 Jun - 6 Jun, 2009. Presentation Type: Poster Presentation Citation: Macarico-da-Costa N, Hepp K and Martin KA (2009). A Systematic Random Sampling Scheme Optimized to Detect the Proportion of Rare Synapses in the Neuropil. Front. Neurosci. Conference Abstract: 11th Meeting of the Portuguese Society for Neuroscience. doi: 10.3389/conf.neuro.01.2009.11.069 Copyright: The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers. They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters. The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated. Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed. For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions. Received: 07 Aug 2009; Published Online: 07 Aug 2009. * Correspondence: Nuno Macarico-da-Costa, Universidade do Porto, Instituto de Biologia Molecular Unidade de Morfofisiologia do Sistema Somatosensitivo, Porto, Portugal, nunod@alleninstitute.org Login Required This action requires you to be registered with Frontiers and logged in. To register or login click here. Abstract Info Abstract The Authors in Frontiers Nuno Macarico-da-Costa Klaus Hepp Kevan A Martin Google Nuno Macarico-da-Costa Klaus Hepp Kevan A Martin Google Scholar Nuno Macarico-da-Costa Klaus Hepp Kevan A Martin PubMed Nuno Macarico-da-Costa Klaus Hepp Kevan A Martin Related Article in Frontiers Google Scholar PubMed Abstract Close Back to top Javascript is disabled. Please enable Javascript in your browser settings in order to see all the content on this page.