Bridging the Gap between Light and Electron Microscopy in the Experimental Tracing of Fiber Connections

Abstract

Ever since the introduction of the Marchi method, the elicitation of Wallerian degeneration has held a major place among the strategies employed in the experimental tracing of central nervous fiber connections. Contrary to the Marchi technique which they have largely replaced, the modern silver methods permit the impregnation of degenerating axoplasm, and thus the visualization, in many fiber systems at least, not only of the trajectories of degenerating nerve fibers, but also of the latter’s terminal axon arborizations and synaptic endstructures.