Ultrastructural study of electrophysiologically identified neurones in the paraventricular nucleus of the rat.

The ultrastructural characterization of electrophysiologically identified neurones of the rat paraventricular hypothalamic nucleus was performed with extracellular labelling technique. The extracellularly recorded neurons are labelled with an electrophoretic deposit of alcian blue contained in the recording micropipette. The neurone thus labelled takes on a dark and shrunken appearance which enables its detection among neighbouring cells without, however, concealing its main morphological characteristics. 1) Spontaneously firing neurones, invaded by an antidromic action potential elicited by electrical stimulation of the neurohypophysis, were identified as magnocellular cells containing dense-cored vesicles of 200-250 nm in diameter. Dense-cored vesicles were not found in the antidromically activated neurones devoid of spontaneous activity. 2) Trans-synaptically activated neurones in the PVN or in its dorso-lateral edge were small cells devoid of dense secretory vesicles. 3) PV neurones in which neurohypophysial stimulation evoked no response, contained small, dense vesicles (100 nm in diameter) comparable with those found in parvocellular peptidergic neurones.