Vertex-Wise Mapping of Difference in CT and SA between 22q11DS and Healthy Control Subjects. The left panel shows vertex-wise differences in CT, and the right panel shows vertex-wise differences in SA. Colored areas show p-values for group differences after FDR correction (q = 0.05) for all vertices across both left and right cortical surfaces. Blue colors represent significant increases in 22q11DS subjects compared to healthy controls, whereas red-yellow colors represent significant reductions in 22q11DS subjects. Compared to controls, subjects with 22q11DS showed greater CT and smaller SA, most prominently in the posterior medial cortex including bilateral cuneus, precuneus, lingual gyrus, pericalcarine cortex, and bilateral medial and lateral frontal cortex. Subjects with 22q11DS showed a distinctive reduction of both CT and SA in bilateral cingulate cortex. They also had reduced CT in the superior temporal gyrus, and greater SA in the superior parietal cortex and rostral middle frontal gyrus. For more information, see the article by Sun et al. on pages 1822-1834.

Representative confocal Z-stacked images of (left) RV-GFP+/NeuN+/GFAP-/Iba1-/NG2- cells with neuronal morphology or (right) RV-GFP+/NeuN-/GFAP-/Iba1-/NG2+ cells with glial morphology. For more information see the article by Schouten et al. on pages 1382-1405.

Enlightening the effects of early life stress and neuronal activity on the postnatal maturation of oligodendrocytes progenitors in the prefrontal cortex. The transcription factor Olig2(red) labels the oligodendrocyte lineage, the APC/CC1 antigen (green) marks the differentiating oligodendrocytes, while the surface receptor PDGFRa (blue) labels oligodendrocyte progenitors in the developing prefrontal cortex of P15 mice. For more information, see the article by Teissier et al. on pages 1159-1174.

Immunofluorescence staining showing nuclei (blue), and CX3CR1-GFP+ microglia (green) in newborn brains expressing Type-I interferon receptor 1 (red). Microglia of offspring that were exposed during pregnancy to elevated Type-I interferon are perturbed and exhibit increased sensitivity to postnatal stress, which is accompanied by behavioral manifestations reminiscent of various neuropsychiatric disorders. For more information see the article by Ben-Yehuda et al. on pages 1050-1067.

In order to investigate the role of astrocytic VMAT2 in dopamine homeostasis, we generated an inducible knock-out mouse line in which the protein could be specifically deleted in a temporally controlled manner by crossing mice harbouring the tamoxifen(TAM)-inducible creERT2 recombinase transgene driven by the hGFAP promoter (hGFAPCre mice) with mice containing cre-excisable loxP sequences in the endogenous VMAT2 gene. The specificity and efficacy of TAM-induced astrocyte VMAT2 excision was confirmed in the fluorescent CreERT2XR26-EYFP-reporter mice. The confocal section reveals the expression of EYFP (green) in astrocytes of the ventral tegmental area (VTA) of the CreERT2XR26-EYFP-reporter mice and shows the recombination in about 60% of astrocytes. No expression of EYFP and thus no recombination is detected in dopaminergic neurons of the VTA stained with tyrosine hydroxylase (TH, red). Nuclei are stained with DAPI (blue). For more information see the article by Petrelli et al. on pages 732-749.

Virally-targeted hemagglutinin-tagged (HA) hM3Dq receptors (red) are restricted to dopamine β hydroxylase (DBH)-expressing neurons (green) in locus coeruleus of the rat brain. Lower panels are magnified images of a single neuron from the upper panels. From left to right: HA, DBH, and merged (yellow). For more information, see the article by Gu et al. on pages 640-654.

Histological high magnification image of glutamatergic neurons expressing either green fluorescent protein (left) or channelrhodopsin 2 (right) in the perifornical hypothalamus of the rat. DAPI was used to label cell nuclei (blue). For more information see the article by Molosh et al. on pages 442-460.

Impaired neural connections between the hippocampus and the mPFC in the KCNH2-3.1 transgenic mouse model. Representative Imaris 3D image reconstruction showing the presence of synapses (synapse, red; YFP, green, layer V pyramidal neuron dendrites) in the mPFC of control (upper panel) and KCNH2-3.1 mice (lower panel) at a lower magnification (left) and a higher magnification (right). Decreased synapse number is observed in the VAMP2-FLAG labeled hippocampal CA1 axonal boutons onto mPFC layer V pyramidal neurons of Thy1-YFP-H/NSE/KCNH2-3.1 transgenic mice compare to control mice. For more information, see the article by Ren et al. on pages 206-229.