Nicolás Cano-Astorga, Sergio Plaza-Alonso, Marta Turegano-Lopez, José Rodrigo-Rodríguez, Angel Merchan-Perez, Javier DeFelipe
The brain contains thousands of millions of synapses, exhibiting diverse structural, molecular, and functional characteristics. However, synapses can be classified into two primary morphological types: Gray's type I and type II, corresponding to Colonnier's asymmetric (AS) and symmetric (SS) synapses, respectively. AS and SS have a thick and thin postsynaptic density, respectively. In the cerebral cortex, since most AS are excitatory (glutamatergic), and SS are inhibitory (GABAergic), determining the distribution, size, density, and proportion of the two major cortical types of synapses is critical, not only to better understand synaptic organization in terms of connectivity, but also from a functional perspective...
2024: Frontiers in Neuroanatomy