more beautiful together

2012

Virus: a new tool for generating pretty pictures (2012)

Using a retrovirus, which infects dividing cells, I made the amazing discovery of four adult-born cells which all had the exact same shape and were located right next to each other!

Virus: a new tool for generating pretty pictures (2012)

More dentate granule cells, infected with Herpes Simplex Virus and expressing GFP

Virus: a new tool for generating pretty pictures (2012)

In the process of learning the surgeries required to stereotactically inject the virus, you inevitably target the wrong regions. Which is fun because then you get a glimpse of something new. Here are GFP+ CA1 pyramidal neurons. You can see their axons projecting down and to the left, towards the subiculum.

Virus: a new tool for generating pretty pictures (2012)

More CA1 pyramidal neurons from the same animal but an adjacent section. I love the fanning of the dendrites.

Virus: a new tool for generating pretty pictures (2012)

Every day I see a retrovirally-labelled, non-neuronal (?) cell that looks more beautiful than the last one I imaged. Makes me want to cry.

Virus: a new tool for generating pretty pictures (2012)

Here are dentate granule cell axons, the mossy fibers, flowing through CA3 pyramidal neuron cell bodies, like a river gushing over rocks. In the woods. The balls on a string appearance is caused by the infamously large presynaptic boutons, which are distributed along the axon (like balls on a string, thin rope, or even dental floss).

Astrocytes - a story in pictures (2011)

One trick on the confocal microscope is to use a larger pinhole so that a greater thickness of the section is captured in the image. Images acquired this way are comparable to a bunch of thin sections that are then merged into a “z-stack” except that some of the tissue is out of focus, giving rise to the blurry “rushing water” look that you see here.

Astrocytes - a story in pictures (2011)

A transverse cut through two blood vessels (in contrast to the parallel cut, previous). Where’s Waldo fans: find the catcher’s mitt cell in this picture.

Astrocytes - a story in pictures (2011)

If GFAP was a catcher’s mitt then, uhh, cell nuclei would be…

Astrocytes - a story in pictures (2011)

An ultrasaturated look at the hippocampal fissure.

Astrocytes - a story in pictures (2011)

Astrocytes - a story in pictures (2011)

Astrocytes - a story in pictures (2011)

An argument against the conventional red, green and blue color scheme of histological imagery.

Astrocytes - a story in pictures (2011)

An argument for the conventional red, green and blue color scheme of histological imagery. (Check out all the radial cell processes extending through the lower blade of the dentate gyrus. Red = thymidine kinase)

Astrocytes - a story in pictures (2011)

Newborn mice neurons (in red) in the molecular layer.