Changes in hypothalamic mu-opioid receptor expression following acute olanzapine treatment in female rats: Implications for feeding behavior.

Advances have been made in recent years in using opioid receptor antagonists as an adjunct therapy to psychotropic medication to reduce debilitating weight gain and metabolic adverse effects associated with in particular second generation antipsychotics. However, it is unknown whether second generation antipsychotics produce a change in opioid receptor expression in the brain. The present study investigated early changes in opioid receptor expression in the female rat hypothalamus, a master controller of hunger and metabolic regulation, after acute treatment with olanzapine, a commonly used second generation antipsychotic.

CRMP2 conditional knockout changes axonal function and ultrastructure of axons in mice corpus callosum.

Collapsin response mediator protein 2 (CRMP2) is a member of a protein family, which is highly involved in neurodevelopment, but most of its members become heavily downregulated in adulthood. CRMP2 is an important factor in neuronal polarization, axonal formation and growth cone collapse. The protein remains expressed in adulthood, but is more region specific.

Spatial quantification of single cell mRNA and ligand binding of the kappa opioid receptor in the rat hypothalamus.

Detailed quantification of brain tissue provides a deeper understanding of changes in expression and function. We have created a pipeline to study the detailed expression patterns of the kappa opioid receptor in the rat hypothalamus using high resolution fluorescence microscopy and receptor autoradiography. The workflow involved structured serial sampling of rat hypothalamic nuclei, in situ detection of mRNA and receptor expression, and advanced image analysis.

Cellular 3D-reconstruction and analysis in the human cerebral cortex using automatic serial sections.

Techniques involving three-dimensional (3D) tissue structure reconstruction and analysis provide a better understanding of changes in molecules and function. We have developed AutoCUTS-LM, an automated system that allows the latest advances in 3D tissue reconstruction and cellular analysis developments using light microscopy on various tissues, including archived tissue. The workflow in this paper involved advanced tissue sampling methods of the human cerebral cortex, an automated serial section collection system, digital tissue library, cell detection using convolution neural network, 3D cell reconstruction, and advanced analysis.

Stereological estimation of particle shape from vertical sections.

In the present paper, we describe a new simple stereological method of estimating volume tensors in 3D from vertical sections. The volume tensors provide information about particle shape in 3D. In a model-based setting, the method requires that the particle distribution is invariant under rotations around the vertical axis.