Neuritic growth cone and ependymal gap junctions in the feline subfornical organ during early development

Intercellular contacts in the subfornical organ (SFO) of kittens 3, 16, and 29 days old were studied in thin sections and by the freeze-etch method. Gap junctions appeared between growing nerve processes and target cells. The junctions were interspersed between immature synapses lacking mitochondria as well as full preand postsynaptic membrane specializations. Gap junctions were seen on filopodia as well as on more mature processes. The morphology of these junctions was typical of those described earlier but they were of small size (0.2–0.3 μm).