Quantitative analysis of synaptic boutons on motoneurons of rhesus monkey spinal cord after chronic deafferentation due to cerebral lesions.

The motoneurons in the lateral nucleus of the anterior horn of the rhesus monkey cervical enlargement were reconstructed by light microscopy of semi-thin sections of 2 micro in thickness which were cut serially, alternately with ultra-thin sections for electron microscopy. Four single neurons were reconstructed with a computer graphic system, and simultaneously the synaptic boutons on the soma and each dendrite of single reconstructed neurons were analyzed quantitatively by electron microscopy. The synaptic boutons were classified into 4 types on the basis of the shape of the synaptic vesicles. The F-type boutons with flattened vesicles, S-type with spherical vesicles, G-type with cored vesicles and large L-type boutons with smaller and polymorphic vesicles, were almost identical to the boutons categorized by Bodian (1966b). The F-type boutons represented the major type in terms of the covering ratio and synaptic population. The S-type boutons tended to occur more frequently on dendrites. The motoneurons of the same region were also investigated in a similar manner after chronic deafferentation by the ablation of the upper extremity area of the left cerebral cortex. F-type of boutons were significantly increased, especially on the dendrites, compared with the synaptic distribution of the normal motoneurons.