X-ray diffraction reveals alterations in mouse somatosensory cortex following sensory deprivation

Sensory experience impacts brain development. In the mouse somatosensory cortex, sensory deprivation via whisker trimming induces reductions in the perineuronal net, the size of neuronal cell bodies, the size and orientation of dendritic arbors, the density of dendritic spines, and the level of myelination, among other effects.

Using a custom-developed laboratory diffractometer, we measured the X-ray diffraction patterns of mouse brain tissue to establish a novel method for examining nanoscale brain structures. Two groups of mice were examined: a control group and one that underwent 30 days of whisker-trimming from birth an established method of sensory deprivation that affects the mouse barrel cortex (whisker sensory processing region of the primary somatosensory cortex). Mice were perfused, and primary somatosensory cortices were isolated for immunocytochemistry and X-ray diffraction imaging.

X-ray images were characterized using a specially developed machine-learning approach, and the clusters that correspond to the two groups are well separated in principal components space. We obtained the perfect values for sensitivity and specificity, as well as for the receiver operator curve classifier.

New machine-learning approaches allow for the first time x-ray diffraction to identify cortex that has undergone sensory deprivation without the use of stains.

We hypothesize that our results are related to the alteration of different nanoscale structural components in the brains of sensory deprived mice. The effects of these nanoscale structural formations can be reflective of changes in the micro- and macro-scale structures and assemblies with the neocortex.