Figure 5. Application of the texture-based alignment to fluorescent imaging within and across brains.

(a) Visualization of the labeling motor and premotor inputs to the jaw muscle across all three planes (subpanels i through iii). The masseter muscle was injected with pseudorabies (PRV) that expressed green FP and visualized with a Neurotrace background stain. The PRV labeled cells were manually annotated and aligned with the reference atlas. Note the widespread, bihemispheric inputs and, critically, the absence of labeling from the contralateral motor nucleus (subpanel iv). (b) Visualization of the labeling of different populations of premotor neurons in separate brains with overlapped density in the parvocellular reticular formation (PCRt). We labeled the premotor neurons of the jaw region of the trigeminal motor nucleus (5N) using G-protein deleted rabies (ΔG-RV) that expressed green FP (red points; subpanel i) and the premotor neurons of the vibrissa region of the facial motor nucleus (7N) using the same construct (green points subpanel ii). Premotor neurons predominantly overlap in a border area of the reticular formations IRt and PCRt (subpanel iii). The insert shows a magnified view of the overlap of the two premotor populations (Figure 1).