Growth Cones Turn at a Boundary
Below is a link to a Quick Time Movie of a cultured neonatal cerebellar
granule neuron turning at a boundary. A round glass coverslip
which formed the bottom of a 35 mm Petri dish was first coated with poly-l-lysine.
A drop of laminin was placed in the center of the coverslip and allowed
to dry. Eight day old rat cerebellar granule neurons were dissociated
and plated on the coverslip. After 24 hr, the Petri dish was placed
in a CO2 incubator on the stage of a Nikon inverted microscope.
Images were captured at 1/min with a 40X objective using the NIH Image
Program. The Quick Time movie was made using NIH Image and represents
125 frames at 10 frames/sec. What you will see is the growth cone
growing on laminin approaching the boundary, sampling the boundary, and
then turning.
Download the Movie