Mapping myelination patterns across the lifespan

Glial cells called oligodendrocytes add insulating lipid-rich myelin sheaths to axons of neurons, which facilitates transmission of information across brain circuits. The focus of this project is image and map myelination changes by processing and imaging brain tissue from transgenic mice in which glial cells express a florescent protein that embeds in the myelin sheaths. Students will work on image acquisition using a spinning-disk confocal microscope of coronal brain slices, analyze images using NIS Elements software, and process data for visualization and analyses using R programing language and Microsoft Excel.