Snapshots in Neuroscience: Male Mouse Striatum

These images have been selected to showcase the art that neuroscience research can create.

As described by the authors: “This image shows neuronal ensembles activated in the male mouse striatum during courtship-associated ultrasonic vocalization. Activated neurons were genetically tagged with TRAP2;Ai14 in mice and visualized by tdTomato fluorescence in red. During the behavioral session, male mice interacted with a female mouse and emitted ultrasonic vocalizations, allowing activity-dependent labeling of neurons recruited during this social vocalization context. The green signal marks μ-opioid receptor 1 (MOR1), a marker that delineates striosome compartments within the striatum. A notable feature of the image is that tdTomato-positive neurons are not evenly distributed across the striatum but are preferentially concentrated within MOR1-positive striosomes rather than within the surrounding matrix.

“By combining activity tagging with striosome-specific immunolabeling, the image captures a spatially organized pattern of vocalization-associated neuronal recruitment. Whole-brain activity mapping identified the rostral caudoputamen as one of the regions whose tdTomato-positive cell density strongly correlated with the number of vocalizations produced. This image is directly linked to our major finding that courtship-induced vocalization engages not only canonical brainstem vocal centers but also forebrain corticostriatal circuits. The enrichment of activated neurons in MOR1-positive striosomes further suggests that the striatum participates in social vocalization through a limbic-associated compartment. Note that the known role of striosomes is in integrating limbic cortical input, motivational state, and action selection.

“Technically, the image was obtained from 30 μm coronal brain sections prepared from TRAP2;Ai14 mice after courtship behavior accompanied by vocalization. The red channel represents activity-tagged tdTomato-positive neurons, whereas the green channel represents MOR1 immunofluorescence used to identify striosomal compartments. The image was acquired using an Olympus BX63 fluorescence microscope with a 20× objective.”

This fluorescence microscopy image of the striatum of a male mouse shows social activity-tagged tdTomato-positive neurons (red), and μ-opioid receptor-expressing striosomes (green). Image credit: Shi-Xiang Luo.

Read the full article:

Whole-Brain Mapping of Neuronal Activity Associated with Vocal Socialization Behaviors in Adult Mice
Shi-Xiang Luo, Shih-Yun Chen, Hsiao-Ying Kuo, and Fu-Chin Liu