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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2013 Mar 22.
Published in final edited form as: Neuron. 2012 Mar 21;73(6):1058–1060. doi: 10.1016/j.neuron.2012.03.001

Figure 1.

Figure 1

A decrease in water diffusivity could reflect a number of different tissue changes, but not all could occur on the time scale observed in Sagi et al., (2012). Some candidate changes are illustrated here. Neurons are in purple, vasculature in red, and astrocytes in orange. Panel A illustrates the baseline state. Panel B shows the swelling of astrocytes in the presence of increased activity – a process that can occur over a course of seconds to minutes. C. Synapses (black circles) and their associated dendritic spines can be formed or modified over a period of minutes to hours. D. More elaborate structural change such as dendritic sprouting, neurogenesis and angiogenesis occurs over a period of days to weeks.