The use of specimen tilt in transmission electron microscopy of the central nervous system.

Thin sections of nervous tissue were viewed at different tilt angles using a transmission electron microscope equipped with a eucentric goniometer stage. In a comparison study of various degrees of tilt, one can observe additional morphological features within synaptic profiles, define subsynaptic structures such as Taxi-bodies, and clearly see the crystalline formation of cytochemical tracers. This study demonstrates the value of tilting thin-sections in the analysis of synapses and other biological material at the ultrastructural level.