Question

What is the different between synaptic terminal and axon terminal?

Answer 1

Synaptic terminal - A bulb at the end of an axon in which neurotransmitter molecules are stored and released.

Axon terminal - Distal terminations of the branches of an axon.

In vertebrates, the two are basically the same, right? Chemical synapses lie at the end of axons, so the two definitions overlap. The thing to remember though is that the term axon terminal can be applied broadly - it refers to the ending of any axon. Also key here is - not all axons rely on chemical synapses to relay their messages. Some (prevalent in invertebrates) have a direct connection (sort of like plasmodesmata in plant cells) where the axon is attached to the other neuron, resulting in faster signal transduction.

In the above case, there is no synaptic terminal (no usage of neurotransmitter) but there is indeed an axon terminal.

Hope that helped!

Answer 2

wow...v.nice and simple explaination