Neuromuscular junctions

Copyright seems more complicated than I could ever have imagined! And all I want to do is make neuroscience images more widely available.

So, to combat the copyright headache I will make my first image one that I know no-one else owns, since it is one of mine...

 

What you are looking at here is the connection between nerve (shown in green) and muscle (red) in the foot of a mouse. This connection is called a neuromuscular junction (for obvious reasons, when you break it down!), and they are responsible for every voluntary movement we make. Pretty useful little fellows. 

Normal healthy neuromuscular junctions look like the one on the right. The green nerve is spreading out across the bit of the muscle which is specialised to receive the signal about when to contract and produce movement. The one on the left is having a bit of a hard time. He's been severed from the rest of the nerve cell, and without connection to the cell body, way off in the spinal cord, the nerve has fragmented, and will soon be cleared away. That scale bar at the bottom represents 30μm. So 0.003cm. Otherwise known as pretty tiny.

I used to think they looked a bit like poppies. Now I just think they look like neuromuscular junctions. I suppose that's the effect of looking at them for four years, but I love them all the more for it. 

I'll hopefully bring you someone else's images soon! There are some unbelievable ones out there, you'll want them framed and on your wall...

Laura