First, we performed in vivo whole-cell recordings during presentation of defined visual stimuli (drifting square-wave gratings)

to confirm network activity (Figures 7A and 7B) and revealed robust orientation-tuned spike responses (Figures 7B and 7C). Next, FM1-43 was applied to the recording region (Figure 7D) while repetitive visual stimulation (10 min) was presented to drive vesicle recycling. The animal was then sacrificed and the brain fixed, sliced, photoconverted, and prepared for ultrastructural analysis. In electron Pomalidomide chemical structure micrographs from the target region, activated synapses were evidenced by PC+ vesicles (Figures 7E and 7F), analogous to those seen in our hippocampal experiments. As expected, in control synapses from mice presented with a gray screen visual stimulus during dye labeling, the average fraction

of PC+ vesicles was significantly lower (gray screen: 0.03 ± 0.01, n = 30; grating: 0.13 ± 0.02, n = 35; based on randomly collected samples for each condition; p = 0.0002, Mann-Whitney t test; Figure S3). Next, we examined the spatial organization of functionally recycling vesicles by generating cumulative frequency distance plots for activated synapses (average recycling fraction: 0.23 ± 0.04, n = 17). Notably, there was a preferential spatial organization of recycling vesicles toward the active zone (p = 0.008, two-tailed paired t test, n = 17, Figure 7G) and a larger representation in the docked http://www.selleck.co.jp/products/Imatinib-Mesylate.html vesicle pool (Figure 7H), analogous to our findings in hippocampus. Furthermore, spatial frequency distribution maps for the two vesicle classes matched our previous results, showing that the spatial arrangement of the two pools was different with the frequency peak of the recycling pool biased toward the active zone center and more tightly distributed (p < 0.0001, two-tailed one-sample t test, n = 17, Figure 7I). Taken together, our findings extend the observation

of a spatially segregated functional vesicle pool to presynaptic terminals in vivo. Here we combined FM dye labeling with photoconversion and serial electron microscopy to examine the ultrastructural organization of the recycling vesicle pool in small native central synapses. This approach provides a selective readout of the functional pool that can be directly related to the morphological ultrastructure unless of the same synaptic terminals. Our findings offer important insights into the relationship between pool size and synapse size. Additionally, spatial analysis reveals shared features of vesicle organization in different types of small central synapse, suggesting that physical positioning of vesicle pools may be an important factor in their favored release. Our findings provide important insights into structure-function relationships in presynaptic terminals, an issue which has attracted considerable recent interest (Holderith et al.