Fig. 4

Lithium pretreatment rescues paclitaxel-induced deficits in cortical neuron morphology. (A) Schematic diagram showing the region in the coronal section where cortical neurons were imaged. The dotted boxes indicate the general locations within each neuron where spines were imaged. (B) Representative traces of cortical neurons, basal dendrites are colored grey, apical dendrites are colored black, scale bar shown is 100 μm. (C-J) Paclitaxel treatment reduced the complexity and spine density of apical dendrites, which could be rescued by lithium pretreatment. Basal dendrites and spines: (C) Repeated measures two-way ANOVA, Distance: F(3.555, 327.0) = 148.5, p < 0.0001; Treatment: F(3, 92) = 1.097, p = 0.35; Distance x Treatment: F(60, 1840) = 1.286, p = 0.071. (D) One-way ANOVA, p = 0.23. (E) Representative images of basal spines, scale bar shown is 5 μm. (F) One-way ANOVA, p = 0.94. Apical dendrites and spines: (G) Distance: F(4.105, 377.7) = 76.74, p < 0.0001; Treatment: F(3, 92) = 12.32, p < 0.0001; Distance x Treatment: F(90, 2760) = 1.722, p < 0.0001. Dunnet’s multiple comparisons test between Saline/Veh and Saline/PTX: p < 0.05 between 110 to 250 μm from the soma. (H) One-way ANOVA: p < 0.0001, Tukey post-hoc test: p = 0.0003 for Saline/Veh vs. Saline/PTX, p = 0.0001 for Saline/PTX vs. LiCl/PTX, p = 0.99 for Saline/Veh vs. LiCl/PTX. (I) Representative images of apical spines, scale bar shown is 5 μm. (J) One-way ANOVA: p = 0.0021, Tukey post-hoc test: p = 0.0024 for Saline/Veh vs. Saline/PTX, p = 0.03 for Saline/PTX vs. LiCl/PTX, p = 0.84 for Saline/Veh vs. LiCl/PTX. For Sholl analysis and dendritic lengths, N = 4 neurons per mouse, 6 mice per group. For spine density, n = 6 segments per mouse, 6 mice per group