Neuromuscular junction — Free Physiology Illustration

Physiology

Neuromuscular junction

Close-up schematic of a neuromuscular junction showing a bulbous motor axon terminal or nerve bouton closely apposed to the skeletal muscle end plate across a narrow synaptic cleft. The presynaptic nerve terminal is pale yellow to tan, may appear as a small branching knob, and contains many small round synaptic vesicles. Beneath it, the postsynaptic muscle membrane is pink and deeply corrugated into prominent junctional folds or subneural clefts, with receptor proteins clustered along the crests. The contact region is shown as the specialized motor end plate on the surface of a skeletal muscle fiber.

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