Brief early-life motor training induces behavioral changes and alters neuromuscular development in mice
Fig 9
Neuromuscular junctions after training in P3 hindlimb muscles.
A. Representative confocal images of transverse tibialis anterior section from a P3 mouse, showing neurofilament (NF), α-bungatoxin (α-BTX,) and laminin labeling (A1). Representative image of NMJ detection (upper panel) and 3D reconstruction (lower panel) with Fiji (A2). Calibration bars: 10 μm. B. Violin plots present the volume (B1), area (B2), area/volume ratio (B3), compactness coefficient (B4) and sphericity coefficient (B5) of AchR clusters in the tibialis anterior and posterior muscles for trained (purple) and untrained (black) mice. C. Violin plots of the surface contact between motoneuron terminals and NMJs in trained (purple) and untrained (black) mice. Analyzed muscles were from 5 trained mice and 4 untrained mice. *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001, ****p < 0.0001 two-way ANOVA analysis, followed by uncorrected Fisher’s LSD post-tests. Underlying data can be found in the S1 Data Sheet.