A resource from 3D electron microscopy of hippocampal neuropil for user training and tool development

Resurgent interest in synaptic circuitry and plasticity has emphasized the importance of 3D reconstruction from serial section electron microscopy (3DEM). Three volumes of hippocampal CA1 neuropil from adult rat were imaged at X-Y resolution of ~2 nm on serial sections of ~50–60 nm thickness. These are the first densely reconstructed hippocampal volumes. All axons, dendrites, glia, and synapses were reconstructed in a cube (~10 μm(3)) surrounding a large dendritic spine, a cylinder (~43 μm(3)) surrounding an oblique dendritic segment (3.4 μm long), and a parallelepiped (~178 μm(3)) surrounding an apical dendritic segment (4.9 μm long). The data provide standards for identifying ultrastructural objects in 3DEM, realistic reconstructions for modeling biophysical properties of synaptic transmission, and a test bed for enhancing reconstruction tools. Representative synapses are quantified from varying section planes, and microtubules, polyribosomes, smooth endoplasmic reticulum, and endosomes are identified and reconstructed in a subset of dendrites. The original images, traces, and Reconstruct software and files are freely available and visualized at the Open Connectome Project (Data Citation 1).