Sunshine in the spinal cord

Today is a good day!

I finished editing chapter 26 out of 27, which means there is light at the end of the tunnel. Woo hoo!

I had to take a few more photomicrographs today, and I just loved this one of a dorsal horn of the spinal cord. I cropped it, created a mirror image of it and put the two together to form a sun. Pretty!

The cells in the middle (the dark ones) are neurons in what is called the gray matter and the white circles with black dots in the middle of them on the outer edges are myelinated (insulated) axons in what is called the white matter. Gray and white refer to the color in vivo, not in a slide like this. The "arms" that radiate out away from the gray matter are axons, carrying information to and from the body to the spinal cord and vice versa. A silver stain is used on this tissue sample, and is responsible for the neat coloration.

Smile!