`Also referred to as Nissl body and in the past as tigroid substance, but this term has now become obsolete. It has a granular structure made of clusters (rosettes) of ribosomes in ‘rough’ endoplasmic reticulum. In fact, the granular structures are proteins and the Nissl substance is the place where most of the synthesis of proteins in the nervous takes place, proteins for intercellular use (viz., for the transmission of neurotransmitters from a cell body to a synapse). Nissl bodies are revealed by Nissl staining, which results in a blue stain seen under a microscope. Nissl bodies evidence changes or even disappear under pathological conditions such axon damage and ischemic cell change. Nissl substance first reported by the neurologist Franz Nissl (1860-1919) in 1884 while still a medical student.
See Axon hillock, Dendrite, Endoplasmic reticulum, Golgi apparatus (body or complex or organ), Neuron, Neurotransmitters, Proteins, Ribosomes, Synapse