Golgi-Cox Silver Staining Technology

Golgi's method is a silver staining technique that is used to visualize nervous tissue under light microscopy. The Golgi silver impregnation technique is a simple histological procedure that reveals complete three-dimensional neuron morphology. This method is based in the formation of opaque intracellular deposits of silver chromate obtained by the reaction between potassium dichromate and silver nitrate (black reaction). The major advantage of the Golgi stain is its ability to completely fill out the morphology of the cell. The cell body, axon, and small protrusions on the dendrites are fully labeled by the stain. This allows a morphologist to study the entirety of the structure of the cell.