3 ms·
How do they measure the synaptic weights? I didn’t think even electron imagery could see synaptic receptors and neurotransmitters.
by mrfusion 8y ago
How do they measure the synaptic weights? I didn’t think even electron imagery could see synaptic receptors and neurotransmitters.
- andbberger 8y agoThey don't. It's purely topology, for which they use EM [1] Uncle Howard has spent a lot of money on modeling the fly connectome at this point!! Pressure is on to show that connectome data is actually useful. I am skeptical. It's not not useful. But it's just one piece of the puzzle... [1] https://www.janelia.org/project-team/flyem https://www.janelia.org/project-team/flyem
- DocSavage 8y agoYou can see synaptic receptors (T-bars and post-synaptic densities) in EM, particularly if the staining is good. Neurotransmitter identification, not so much. So you combine the EM connectomics with other studies like RNA sequencing or Fluorescent In-Situ Hybridization. In insects, you can have multiple transmitters with multiple receptors (possibly differing in sign) in the same cell, so there's that complication.