Morphological analysis of descending tracts in mouse spinal cord using tissue clearing, tissue expansion and tiling light sheet microscopy techniques.

ABSTRACT: Descending tracts carry motor signals from the brain to spinal cord. However, few previous studies show the full view of the long tracts from a 3D perspective. In this study, we have followed five less well-known tracts that project from midbrain, hindbrain, and cerebellum to the mouse spinal cord, using the tissue clearing method in combination with tiling light sheet microscopy. By tracing axons in spinal cord, we found several notable features: among the five tracts the collateral "sister" branches occurred only in the axons originating from the cerebellospinal tracts; the axons from the spinal trigeminal nucleus crossed the midline of spinal cord to the contralateral side; those arising in the medullary reticular formation ventral part gave many branches in both cervical and lumbar seg

SUBMITTER: Xie J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10542777 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature