Randy Stout 

 "Gateways into the Brain" - A three-dimensional rendering of astrocytes and their gap junction connections surrounding a brain blood vessel. The orange structures are the GFAP cytoskeleton of the astrocytes with the gap junctions connecting them in purple. Nuclei of all cells (including vascular endothelial cells along the vessel) are shown in blue. Astrocyte extend endfeet to encase the vessel with larger gap junctions connecting endfeet. Rat brain imaged on a Zeiss 980 Airyscan 2 confocal microscope with 1.4NA 63X objective at the NYIT Imaging Center. Image rendered with Comet ORS Dragonfly software. Astrocytes, their gap junctions, and their perivascular endfeet are critical for controlling distribution of chemicals into and across the brain- dysfunction of these parts can occur in aging and brain injury.