FIGURE 7.

Alaskan chaga treatments impact aging anterior and posterior touch receptor neurons. Animals from control and lifespan-extending chaga treatments (50, 2, and 800 μg/mL) were imaged for touch receptor neuron aberrations at days 5, 7, 9, and 11 of adulthood. The total number of anterior cell soma outgrowths was unchanged with chaga treatment (A), but the mean number of extended outgrowths (≥2× longer than soma diameter) (B) and short soma outgrowths (<1× soma diameter) per anterior cell (C) were impacted. Posterior cell process outgrowths (D) represents branching or loop phenotypes observed from the axon and/dendrites of the two posterior lateral neurons (PLM). Representative images of short soma outgrowths (E), standard soma outgrowth (1× soma diameter; F), different length soma outgrowths (G) and extreme aberrations (H) are also shown. Bars represent mean ± standard error of the mean. Asterisks (p < 0.05) denote significance from age-matched control. Nworms = 28–50, Nanterior cells = 50–95, and Nposterior cells = 56–100 per bar. All images were collected at 20× magnification and were cropped to the same scale (no other image processing was performed). White scale bars are 10 μm.