Myelin plays an essential role in the brain and nervous system by facilitating communication between neurons. Disease that disrupt myelin, such as multiple sclerosis and Guillain-Barré syndrome, cause functional disabilities. However, myelin biology is not well characterized, as tools to describe the organization of myelin in live animals have been lacking.
New research from the laboratory of Daniel Côté describes a novel microscopic technique, polarimetric multiphoton microscopy, that has allowed the researchers to view the structural organisation of myelin in the spinal cord of live zebrafish.
Moreover, this approach could be used to quantify the efficacy of potential myelin modulating drugs in live animals.
Read the original research article in Scientific Reports:
Turcotte R, Rutledge DJ, Bélanger E, Dill D, Macklin WB, Côté DC. Intravital assessment of myelin molecular order with polarimetric multiphoton microscopy. Sci Rep. 2016 Aug 19;6:31685. doi: 10.1038/srep31685.
