Richards Kay, Coulthard Lachlan I, Rome Campbell, Collyer Taya A, Karle Timothy J, Beare Richard, Petrou Steven
Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health, Melbourne, Australia.
Academic Unit, Peninsula Clinical School, Central Clinical School, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia.
Neuroimage Rep. 2021 Jun 10;1(2):100023. doi: 10.1016/j.ynirp.2021.100023. eCollection 2021 Jun.
Neurodevelopmental disorders are complex diseases with genetic and environmental factors shaping brain architecture. Here we undertook a proof of concept study to investigate brain structure using a glass-brain clearing and 3D-mapping workflow at high-resolution. Whole brain and sub-structure analysis included the genetic developmental and epileptic encephalopathy mouse model of Dravet syndrome (DS). In addition, we included the Black and Tan BRachyury (BTBR) mouse strain, which has acknowledged major and minor structural anomalies. Ex vivo P16 mouse brains were cleared using a modified solvent-based clearing method. The high-quality autofluorescence signal from light-sheet imaging provided unambiguous anatomical feature determination including the barrel-like regions of the cortex and absence of corpus callosum in BTBR mice. BTBR volume estimates were consistent with previous reports showing reduced hippocampal commissure volume. An automated image registration and statistical analysis pipeline was used to compare the control and DS model groups. Glass-brain images were registered to the scalable Allen Brain Atlas and annotations transformed into native space, with 20 μm isotropic voxels. Overall, glassbrain mapping provided a high-resolution measure of the premature mouse brain anatomy. We report novel structural changes in the DS model, which are consistent with cognitive and behavioural co-morbidities reported in this neurodevelopmental disease model.
神经发育障碍是由遗传和环境因素塑造大脑结构的复杂疾病。在此,我们进行了一项概念验证研究,以高分辨率使用玻璃脑清除和三维映射工作流程来研究大脑结构。全脑和亚结构分析包括Dravet综合征(DS)的遗传发育和癫痫性脑病小鼠模型。此外,我们还纳入了黑褐短尾(BTBR)小鼠品系,其存在公认的主要和次要结构异常。使用改良的基于溶剂的清除方法对出生后第16天(P16)的小鼠离体大脑进行清除。光片成像产生的高质量自发荧光信号提供了明确的解剖特征判定,包括皮质的桶状区域以及BTBR小鼠胼胝体的缺失。BTBR体积估计与先前显示海马连合体积减小的报告一致。使用自动图像配准和统计分析管道比较对照和DS模型组。玻璃脑图像被配准到可扩展的艾伦脑图谱,注释被转换到原生空间,体素各向同性为20μm。总体而言,玻璃脑图谱提供了对早产小鼠脑解剖结构的高分辨率测量。我们报告了DS模型中的新结构变化,这与该神经发育疾病模型中报道的认知和行为共病一致。