Live cell cinema!

Studying how neurons grow in vitro and localize molecules in real time is key to understanding neuron function in the intact brain. Our time lapse recordings take a glimpse at living neurons to show how dynamic the growth of axons can be, how new branches form on the dendritic arbor, how polymers are added to the microtubule cytoskeleton inside these dendrites, and how patterns in the extracellular environment can act as a trellis to sculpt the axonal and dendritic arbors as they form.