Data from: Serial-section atlas of the Tritonia pedal ganglion

The pedal ganglion of the nudibranch gastropod Tritonia diomedea has been the focus of neurophysiological studies for more than 50 years. These investigations have examined the neural basis of behaviors as diverse as swimming, crawling, reflex withdrawals, orientation to water flow, orientation to the earth's magnetic field, and learning. In spite of this sustained research focus, most studies have confined themselves to the layer of neurons that are visible on the ganglion's surface, leaving many neurons, which reside in deeper layers, largely unknown and thus unstudied. To facilitate work on such neurons, the present study used serial section light microscopy to generate a detailed pictorial atlas of the pedal ganglion. One pedal ganglion was sectioned horizontally at 2 µm, and another vertically at 5 µm intervals. The resulting images were examined separately or combined into stacks to generate movie tours through the ganglion. These were also used to generate 3D reconstructions of individual neurons, and rotating movies of digitally desheathed whole ganglia to reveal all surface neurons. A complete neuron count of the horizontally sectioned ganglion yielded 1885 neurons. Real and virtual sections from the image stacks were used to reveal the morphology of individual neurons, as well as the major axon bundles traveling within the ganglion to and between its several nerves and connectives. Extensive supplemental data are provided, as well as a link to the Dryad Data Repository site where the complete sets of high resolution serial section images can be downloaded.

裸鳃腹足类（nudibranch gastropod）迪氏三歧海蛞蝓（Tritonia diomedea）的足神经节（pedal ganglion），五十余年来始终是神经生理学研究的核心对象。此类研究已探明了游泳、爬行、反射退缩、水流定向、地磁场定向以及学习行为等多种行为的神经基础。尽管该领域的研究持续推进，但绝大多数现有研究仅聚焦于神经节表面可见的神经元层，导致深藏于深层的大量神经元几乎未被探明，相关研究亦付阙如。为推动此类深层神经元的研究工作，本研究采用连续切片光学显微镜技术（serial section light microscopy），构建了该足神经节的详细图谱集。研究人员对一个足神经节以2微米间隔进行水平切片，对另一个则以5微米间隔开展垂直切片。所得切片图像可分别进行分析，或通过堆叠生成可遍历该神经节的动态影像。此外，该图像集还被用于构建单个神经元的三维重建模型，以及对经数字化脱鞘的完整神经节制作旋转动态影像，以完整展示所有表面神经元的形态。对该水平切片神经节的完整神经元计数结果显示，其总神经元数量为1885个。图像堆叠所得的实际切片与虚拟切片，可用于展示单个神经元的形态，以及神经节内连接各神经与连合的主要轴突束。本研究同时提供了丰富的补充数据，并附上Dryad数据仓储（Dryad Data Repository）的链接，用户可从中下载全套高分辨率连续切片图像。