The effect of over‐activity on the morphological structure of the synapse

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Abstract
Careful investigation of the cell body as well as the synapse of the fatigued Mauthner cell in Ameiurus revealed a number of interesting findings, which can be summarized as follows: The cell body was found either swollen or shrunken; the turgescence was regarded as the result of overactivity and the shrinkage as that, of exhaustion. The Nissl substance was in a more or less advanced stage of chromatolysis and thereby the cytoplasm was stained variously deeply. On the border of the nucleus a mass of stainable substance was observed as the restitution phenomenon of the Nissl bodies op the side of the nucleus. It was also accepted that a mutual interchange of substance occurs between nucleus and protoplasm in activity. The nucleus was also either swollen or shrunken; in the swollen nerve cell it was sometimes renioved to one side of the cell body. The nucleolus mas also found swollen sometimes and other times shrunken and it was of angular or otherwise irregular shape.