Fig. 3

Alteration in maturation of dendritic spines of newborn neurons after MCAO. (a) Schematic illustration of the procedure for the visualization of maturation in dendritic protrusions in vivo after stroke. EGFP fused with β-actin protein was used for their preferential localization in dendritic protrusions. (b) Representative image and its enlarged inset showing the selection of an isolated dendritic branch located at 50 to 100 μm from the neuronal soma for the analyzing of dendritic protrusions. The scale bar is 10 μm. (c) Representative images of the dendritic protrusions from the retroviral labeled newly generated neurons born at seven days after MCAO surgery and imaged at 14, 21 or 28 dpi. The scale bar is 5 μm. (d) Quantification of the number of dendritic protrusions per μm of dendritic tree obtained from 14, 21 or 28 dpi. (e) Quantification of the protrusion width of individual dendritic spines obtained from 14, 21 or 28 after viral injection. Data are presented as mean ± SEM. n = 20 to 40 dendrites from three to four mice, two-tailed unpaired t-test. * p < 0.05 compared to sham-operated control