Use Of Fluorogold To Image Mice Neuroendocrine Circuits

The purpose of this study was to utilize Fluorogold, a retrograde tracer, to label neuroendocrine cells in mice brains and generate digital reconstructions to map these circuits. This method labels neuroendocrine cells with axon terminals that extend beyond the blood-brain barrier following a intraperitoneal injection of 0.15μL Fluorogold/g of mouse. The efficacy of Fluorogold was tested by injecting a 10% solution into mice, sacrificing them and removing the brains for analysis via confocal microscopy as well as a dehydration and clearing procedure using optical projection tomography. Results show that Fluorogold labels neurons in centralized regions of the hypothalamus including the paraventricular nucleus, the median eminence and other regions. This is an important study because the data will be used as a baseline to investigate and compare blood-brain barrier and neuroendocrine dysfunction in an animal model of demyelination. Data will be used to understand mechanisms and to identify potential therapeutic treatments of Multiple Sclerosis pathology since MS can be associated with neurodegeneration and demyelination of axons found in these regions.