Neuronal tracing

Neuronal tracing, or neuron reconstruction is a technique used in neuroscience and to determine the pathway of the neurites or neuronal processes, the axons and dendrites, of a neuron. From a sample preparation point of view, it may refer to some of the following as well as other genetic neuron labeling techniques,

• Anterograde tracing, for labeling from the cell body to synapse;
• Retrograde tracing, for labeling from the synapse to cell body;
• Viral neuronal tracing, for a technique which can be used to label in either direction;
• Manual tracing of neuronal imagery.

In broad sense, neuron tracing is more often related to digital reconstruction of a neuron's morphology from imaging data of above samples or to the process of generating connectomes.^[1]