Cover of Journal of Neuroscience

plasticity

The Cover picture on the Journal of Neuroscience, April 29, 2015 was selected from Dr. Gordon Mitchell’s laboratory work. The immunohistochemical confocal image at 100× magnification shows a cross-section of rat spinal cord. Some of the neurons that innervate muscles associated with breathing are labeled (blue), along with microglia (the main immune cells preventing infection and disease in the central nervous system, red) and a kinase involved in the response to inflammation, p38 MAPK (green). Rats treated repeatedly with low-oxygen episodes during the night (similar to episodes experienced by people with sleep apnea) had high expression of p38 MAPK protein. This suggests p38 MAPK may be a key molecule in undermining breathing after multiple low-oxygen episodes and initiation of inflammation in the CNS. For more information, see the article by Huxtable et al. (pages 6871–6880).