Thank you so much, Ciaràn!

Thanks, Ciaran!

Thanks so much! Imaging was definitely my favorite part of the work.

I can make a few educated guesses based on the neuronal functions in different regions, but I’m not sure I can say astrocytes are contributing directly to neuronal functions in each region the network traverses. I think breaking apart this question is going to take a long time, but should be fun!

Sensory deprivation (whisker trim) causes the barrel cortex astrocyte network to shrink! Check out Figure 5 for more details.

I appreciate that! 😁

First author here! This work has been cooking for quite a long time, and I have many more thoughts on it than could possibly exist in one paper. I'm always happy to answer more questions :)

I'm so honored to have the chance to show the world how beautiful the brain's "other" circuitry is. It has been the joy of my career to work on this project, and I can't wait to spend the rest of it learning how much more these networks are capable of.

#womeninSTEM #glia #neuroscience

Lectin conjugated to AlexaFluor647, yep!

Thanks! @philiphasel.bsky.social and I were always struck by how much this in vivo astrocyte population looked like primary astrocytes grown in serum. Suuuuper different than astrocytes in the parenchyma. Might be a hint about what they’re doing while living way up there!