CREB Regulates Experience-Dependent Spine Formation and Enlargement in Mouse Barrel Cortex

Figure 4

CREB function is necessary for whisker trimming-induced increase of synaptic contacts in Contra barrel cortex. (a) Representative images from wild type (WT) and mCREB mice in Naïve and trimmed conditions (Naïve, Ipsi, and Contra, scale bar 10 μm). Sections were stained for the presynaptic marker vesicular glutamate transporter 1 (vGlut1) (Red), the postsynaptic marker PSD 95 (Green), and DAPI (blue). Red squares refer to areas magnified in (b). Colabelled puncta are shown in yellow; arrows mark examples of colaballed puncta (one example for each image). (c) Histogram showing the mean number of colocalizations of wild type (WT) and mCREB mice in trimmed condition. Dotted line indicates the average number of colocalizations in the relative Naïve group. Colocalization was plotted as number of overlapping signals (mean ± s.e.m.) per 100 µm². ## < 0.01 (difference from relative Naïve); < 0.001 (difference between genotypes). : 5 to 6 hemispheres for each group.

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