Fig. 4.

Cuprizone treatment leads to excitatory synaptic changes in the lateral geniculate nucleus. a Bar graph depicting the number of puncta immuno-positive for vesicular glutamate transporter 2 (vGluT2; pre-synaptic, excitatory) and postsynaptic density protein 95 (PSD95; postsynaptic) in the dLGN at 5 weeks of cuprizone treatment. Control levels were set to 1.0 (dotted line). Two fields per slice and two slices per animal (n = 4: control; n = 5: cuprizone) were analyzed. b Representative confocal images showing the distribution of vGluT2- and PSD95-positive synaptic densities at 5 weeks of cuprizone treatment (lower panels) or under control conditions (upper panels). The outer right panels depict the areas marked by the dotted squares; dotted circles mark vGluT2/PSD95 double-positive densities. Scale bars: 20 and 5 μm (outer right panels). c Bar graph depicting vGluT2 protein levels at 3 (3w) and 5 (5w) weeks of cuprizone treatment. Glyceraldehyde 3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GAPDH) protein levels were used for normalization. n = 4: control and cuprizone 3w; n = 7: control and cuprizone 5w. A representative Western blot is shown in the inset (upper right). All bar graphs depict means ± SEMs. *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001, not significant (ns) p ≥ 0.05 (one-sample t test; compared to set control value = 1)