Non-invasive Skeletal Muscle Quantification in Small Animals Using Micro-computed Tomography.

Skeletal muscle size, mass, and composition are critical properties for studying metabolic and muscle-related diseases, as they directly impact the understanding of disease progression and treatment outcomes. Quantifying a live animal's lean, adipose, and skeletal mass is important in metabolic, physiology, pharmacologic, and geroscience studies. However, obtaining accurate body composition measurements, especially of lean mass, remains challenging due to the inherent limitations of conventional assessment techniques.

Social isolation leads to mild social recognition impairment and losses in brain cellularity.

Chronic social stress is a significant risk factor for several neuropsychiatric disorders, mainly major depressive disorder (MDD). In this way, patients with clinical depression may display many symptoms, including disrupted social behavior and anxiety. However, like many other psychiatric diseases, MDD has a very complex etiology and pathophysiology.

Terminal Arbors of Callosal Axons Undergo Plastic Changes in Early-Amputated Rats.

Sensory information is processed in specific brain regions, and shared between the cerebral hemispheres by axons that cross the midline through the corpus callosum. However, sensory deprivation usually causes sensory losses and/or functional changes. This is the case of people who suffered limb amputation and show changes of body map organization within the somatosensory cortex (S1) of the deafferented cerebral hemisphere (contralateral to the amputated limb), as well as in the afferented hemisphere (ipsilateral to the amputated limb).