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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2013 Sep 1.
Published in final edited form as: Nat Med. 2013 Feb 17;19(3):337–344. doi: 10.1038/nm.3090

Figure 5.

Figure 5

Chronic social defeat regulates immature stubby spine formation through a Rac1 dependent mechanism. (a–b) Representative 63x confocal z-stack images of MSN dendritic segments from control and susceptible mice following chronic social defeat. White arrows in the GFP panel indicate dendritic stubby spines. White circles in merge panel highlight colocalization of GFP stubby spines and cofilin puncta, while yellow circles indicate non-co-localized stubby spines. Measurement bar is 10 μm. (c) Chronic social defeat stress results in increased cofilin puncta in stubby dendritic spines, but not in thin, mushroom, or by total spine density. *P < 0.05 by students t-test, 48 neurons, 4–5 mice per group. (d) Representative 3D reconstructions of HSV-infected MSN dendritic segments. White arrows delineate stubby spines, yellow arrows delineate mushroom spines, and blue arrows delineate thins spines. (e,i) Over expression of RacCA is sufficient to reverse chronic social defeat stress induction of stubby spines, and is significantly correlated with social avoidance behavior. (f–h,j) Neither chronic social defeat nor RacCA modulates thin, mushroom or total dendritic spine density. *P < 0.05 by two-way ANOVA, 61 neurons, 3–5 mice per group (e–h), P <0.05 compared by Pearson's r (i,j); measurement bar is 5 μm.