Large-volume en-bloc staining for electron microscopy-based connectomics

Abstract

Large-scale connectomics requires dense staining of neuronal tissue blocks for electron microscopy (EM). Here we report a large-volume dense en-bloc EM staining protocol that overcomes the staining gradients, which so far substantially limited the reconstructable volumes in three-dimensional (3D) EM. Our protocol provides densely reconstructable tissue blocks from mouse neocortex sized at least 1 mm in diameter. By relaxing the constraints on precise topographic sample targeting, it makes the correlated functional and structural analysis of neuronal circuits realistic.

Abstract of "Large-volume en-bloc staining for electron microscopy-based connectomics" by Hua Y, Laserstein P, Helmstaedter M, https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms8923, used under its Creative Commons Attribution license (CC-BY); markup removed, otherwise unmodified.