Gene expression in brain during cuprizone-induced demyelination and remyelination

When C57BL/6J mice, 8 weeks of age, received 0.2% Cuprizone in their diet, extensive demyelination in corpus callosum was detectable after 3 weeks, and there was massive demyelination by 4 weeks. As expected, the accumulation of phagocytically active microglia/macrophages correlated closely with demyelination. When Cuprizone was removed from the diet, remyelination was soon initiated; after 6 weeks of recovery, myelin levels were near-normal and phagocytic cells were no longer prominent. Steady-state levels of mRNA for myelin-associated glycoprotein, myelin basic protein, and ceramide galactosyltransferase were already profoundly depressed after 1 week of Cuprizone exposure and were only 10-20% of control values after 2 weeks. Unexpectedly, upregulation of mRNA for these myelin genes did not correlate with initiation of remyelination but rather with accumulation of microglia/macrophages. After 6 weeks of exposure to Cuprizone, mRNA levels were at control levels or higher-in the face of massive demyelination. This suggests that in addition to effecting myelin removal, microglia/macrophages may simultaneously push surviving oligodendroglia or their progenitors toward myelination.     

Guest Editorial: MLSP 2020 Special Issue

Journal of Signal Processing Systems -     

Oligoazobenzenes--switching in a new dimension

A new synthesis of cyclotrisazobenzene with different substituents was developed with yields of up to 30%. Solid-state structures of cyclotrisazobenzene as well as the tert-butyl derivative were obtained. Also, the photochromic properties and the complexation behaviour with alkali metal ions of this class of molecules were investigated.     

Dispersion‐based Color Projection using Masked Prisms

We present a method for projecting arbitrary color images using a white light source and an optical device with no colored components — consisting solely of one or two prisms and two transparent masks. When illuminated, the first mask creates structured white light that is then dispersed in the prism and attenuated by the second mask to create the color projection. We derive analytical expressions for the mask parameters from the physical components and validate our approach both in simulation and also demonstrate it on a wide variety of images using two different physical setups (one consisting of two inexpensive triangular prisms, and the other using a single rhombic prism). Furthermore, we show that optimizing the masks simultaneously enables obfuscating the image content, and provides a tradeoff between increased light throughput (by up to a factor of three) and maximum color saturation.