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Flat Mount Imaging of Mouse Skin and Its Application to the Analysis of Hair Follicle Patterning and Sensory Axon Morphology

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Functional barrel cortex in 'hairless', nude mice.

Richard T Stevens¹, Charles J Hodge

¹Department of Neurosurgery, 750 East Adams St., SUNY Upstate Medical University, Syracuse, NY 13210, USA. stevensr@upstate.edu

|May 15, 2007

Summary

Nude mice exhibit unusual whisker growth, yet their barrel cortex development and function remain normal. This suggests whisker deprivation does not impact this key brain region

Area of Science:

Neuroscience
Developmental Biology
Genetics

Background:

Nude mice, genetically distinct from wild-type, display abnormal hair and whisker development, lacking visible vibrissae at birth.
Adult nude mice experience irregular whisker cycling, with fragile whiskers breaking or falling out, leading to periodic whisker absence.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate the structural and functional development of the barrel cortex in nude mice despite their abnormal whisker growth patterns.
To determine if periodic whisker deprivation affects barrel cortex organization and sensory processing.

Main Methods:

Cytochrome oxidase staining was used to assess the structural appearance of the barrel cortex.
Intrinsic optical imaging was employed to study barrel cortex responses to single whisker stimulation.

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Main Results:

The barrel cortex of nude mice showed a normal structural appearance, similar to wild-type mice, when analyzed with cytochrome oxidase staining.
Functional studies using intrinsic optical imaging revealed that barrel cortex responses to single whisker stimulation were unaltered, even with intermittent whisker loss.

Conclusions:

Despite abnormal whisker development and periodic deprivation, the structural organization of the barrel cortex in nude mice is normal.
Sensory processing within the barrel cortex, as indicated by responses to whisker stimulation, is not significantly affected by the unique hair growth patterns observed in nude mice.