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. 2023 Jan 23;43(7):1142–1152. doi: 10.1177/0271678X231152549

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© The Author(s) 2023

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).

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Figure 1. — Tyrosine hydroxylase- and DβH-labelled axons are in close proximity to rodent and human pericytes in the cerebral cortex. (a) Maximum intensity projection confocal image of tyrosine hydroxylase (TH) labelled axon varicosities (white, potential LC axon transmitter release sites) and pericytes (PC, yellow arrows) and arteriole smooth muscle cells (SMCs) labelled using dsRed under the NG2 promoter in the cortex of an adult NG2-dsRed mouse. The capillary branching order from the penetrating arteriole (0^th order) is indicated. (b) Higher magnification images: left, TH-labelled axon near arteriole; right, two 3D views (rendered in Imaris) of a pericyte (arrow) at a capillary branch point and TH-labelled axon. Inset shows measurement in 3D of the shortest distance from a TH-labeled varicosity surface to the surface of the nearest soma (green blobs are to indicate the end of the measurement line). (c) Nearest TH-labelled varicosities are closer to pericyte somata than to arteriolar smooth muscle cells (chosen to be half way up the penetrating arteriole), independent of capillary branch order (n = 16 arterioles and 76 pericytes from 3 mice). (d) Left: Co-labelling for TH and dopamine beta hydroxylase (DβH) to define noradrenergic axons. Right: Varicosities labelled for both TH and DβH are located closer to pericyte somata than to SMCs (n = 7 SMCs and 11 pericytes from 3 mice). (e) Confocal image (single plane) of TH-labelled axon and isolectin B4 (IB4) labelled arteriole, capillaries and pericytes (arrows) in human cortical tissue and (f) Nearest TH-labelled axon to pericyte soma distance in human cortical tissue (20 pericytes from 3 humans).