Figure 2

Chronic cytokine treatment does not result in abnormalities in the gross projection pattern of central visual pathways. (A) Diagram of the Xenopus tadpole brain visual projections. Visual inputs enter the tectum via the optic nerve (ON) and primarily project contralaterally to the optic tectum (Tec). Other projections are to the contralateral pre-tectal neuropil (PT), the thalamus (Th) and the basal optic neuropil (BO). Rostral and caudal directions are indicated as is the location of the hindbrain (HB). (B) Two separate examples of the visual projection are shown from Isl-2b:GFP transgenic tadpoles reared under different conditions. The top images were taken with a conventional fluorescent microscope and show the different areas. In IL-6 the thalamic projection is shown as an inset since it was outside of the field of view of the original image. The bottom images are maximum projections of confocal stacks focusing on the tectum. None of the cytokine treatments appeared to cause any gross morphological abnormalities. At least five different brains were imaged for each of the rearing conditions.