Inputs and Outputs of vEM in a Sensory System

The sense of touch enables organisms to interact with their environment by perceiving physical forces and guiding complex behaviors. Touch sensing is mediated by sensory neurons that innervate the body surface of animals and, together with surrounding cells, form specialized structures known as tactile organs [1-2]. Accessing the structure of a tactile organ at different scales would provide crucial insights into the cellular basis of touch. A major challenge towards this goal is to image whole cell volumes with enough resolution for their subsequent assembly in 3D. Volume electron microscopy (vEM) techniques can be applied to acquire and render the volume of the cells in tactile organs, providing precious insights into the cellular architecture of the sensory system of touch and its biological function.