title: Three-dimensional mouse brain cytoarchitecture revealed by laboratory-based x-ray phase-contrast tomography.
abstract: Studies of brain cytoarchitecture in mammals are routinely performed by serial sectioning of the specimen and staining of the sections. The procedure is labor-intensive and the 3D architecture can only be determined after aligning individual 2D sections, leading to a reconstructed volume with non-isotropic resolution. Propagation-based x-ray phase-contrast tomography offers a unique potential for high-resolution 3D imaging of intact biological specimen due to the high penetration depth and potential resolution. We here show that even compact laboratory CT at an optimized liquid-metal jet microfocus source combined with suitable phase-retrieval algorithms and a novel tissue preparation can provide cellular and subcellular resolution in millimeter sized samples of mouse brain. We removed water and lipids from entire mouse brains and measured the remaining dry tissue matrix in air, lowering absorption but increasing phase contrast. We present single-cell resolution images of mouse brain cytoarchitecture and show that axons can be revealed in myelinated fiber bundles. In contrast to optical 3D techniques our approach does neither require staining of cells nor tissue clearing, procedures that are increasingly difficult to apply with increasing sample and brain sizes. The approach thus opens a novel route for high-resolution high-throughput studies of brain architecture in mammals.
authors.affiliation: Institute for X-Ray Physics, University of Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany.|Center for Nanoscopy and Molecular Physiology of the Brain, Göttingen, Germany.
authors.forename: Mareike
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Töpperwien
authors.affiliation: Institute for X-Ray Physics, University of Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany.
authors.forename: Martin
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Krenkel
authors.affiliation: Leibniz-Institute for Neurobiology, Magdeburg, Germany.
authors.forename: Daniel
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Vincenz
authors.affiliation: Leibniz-Institute for Neurobiology, Magdeburg, Germany.
authors.forename: Franziska
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Stöber
authors.affiliation: Leibniz-Institute for Neurobiology, Magdeburg, Germany.
authors.forename: Anja M
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Oelschlegel
authors.affiliation: Leibniz-Institute for Neurobiology, Magdeburg, Germany.
authors.forename: Jürgen
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Goldschmidt
authors.affiliation: Institute for X-Ray Physics, University of Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany.|Center for Nanoscopy and Molecular Physiology of the Brain, Göttingen, Germany.
authors.forename: Tim
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Salditt
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D000818:Animals; D001921:Brain / Q000166:cytology*; D021621:Imaging, Three-Dimensional / Q000379:methods*; D051379:Mice; D008858:Microscopy, Phase-Contrast; D059010:Single-Cell Analysis; D014057:Tomography, X-Ray Computed / Q000379:methods*