Cerebral palsy, which was first described in 1860 by British surgeon William Little, is a disability linked to brain injury occurring before, during, or soon after birth while the brain is still in a developmental stage. Underlying causes of cerebral palsy are various, cases being linked to an assortment of diseases, physical abuse, smoking, drinking, or drug abuse by the mother during pregnancy, low birth weight, and asphyxia during the birth process. The disability is characterized by loss of voluntary control of the muscles and poor coordination. Spasticitity, paralysis, and seizures are included among the common symptoms of cerebral palsy, and the disorder occurs with mental retardation in approximately 20 to 30 percent of patients. The type and severity of symptoms depends on the extent of brain damage and the precise area of the brain affected.

The rat brain tissue specimen above was fixed, permeabilized, blocked with 10-percent normal goat serum, and then treated with rabbit anti-GFAP (astroglia and neural stem cells) and mouse anti-myelin BP (myelinated nerve fibers) primary antibodies followed by goat anti-rabbit and anti-mouse secondary antibodies (IgG) conjugated to Alexa Fluor 568 and Alexa Fluor 488, respectively. Nuclei in the tissue section were subsequently targeted with Hoechst 33342. Images were recorded in grayscale with a 12-bit digital camera coupled to a Nikon Eclipse 80i microscope equipped with bandpass emission fluorescence filter optical blocks. During the processing stage, individual image channels were pseudocolored with RGB values corresponding to each of the fluorophore emission spectral profiles, with the exception of Alexa Fluor 568, which was pseudocolored blue, and Hoechst 33342, which was pseudocolored red.