Image-guided phenotyping of ovariectomized mice: altered functional connectivity, cognition, myelination, and dopaminergic functionality.

A large proportion of the population suffers from endocrine disruption, e.g., menopausal women, which might result in accelerated aging and a higher risk for developing cognitive disorders.

Effects of vitrification on the viability of alginate encapsulated isolated bovine pre-antral follicles.

Purpose: Individual follicle cryopreservation techniques, without hydrogel support, are labor-intensive and a substantial proportion of isolated follicles are lost during handling and after warming. Therefore, the viability and morphology of isolated bovine (as a model for human) pre-antral follicles after vitrification and warming, when encapsulated in alginate beads, were investigated.

Methods: Bovine pre-antral follicles were mechanically isolated and divided into four different groups: (1) culture in 2% alginate beads (3D system) and vitrification in beads using mesh cups (3DVIT), (2) culture in 2% alginate beads (3DCUL), (3) culture in 96-well plates (2D system) and vitrification using High Security Vitrification straws® (2DVIT), (4) culture in a 2D system (2DCUL).

Bovine in vitro reproduction models can contribute to the development of (female) fertility preservation strategies.

Recent increases in the number of successful cancer treatments have stimulated interest in fertility preservation strategies in women of reproductive age and in prepubertal girls. However, research on the application of such programs under clinical conditions suffers from the scarce availability of human tissue for research purposes and from concurrent relevant ethical issues. To partly address this problem, this review focuses on the possibilities of ruminant in vitro models providing additional insights into several aspects of fertility preservation, ranging from preantral follicle collection to oocyte and follicle cryopreservation, to noninvasive quality assessment, and to follicle culture.

Monitoring preantral follicle survival and growth in bovine ovarian biopsies by repeated use of neutral red and cultured in vitro under low and high oxygen tension.

The development and optimization of preantral follicle culture methods are crucial in fertility preservation strategies. As preantral follicle dynamics are usually assessed by various invasive techniques, the need for alternative noninvasive evaluation tools exists. Recently, neutral red (NR) was put forward to visualize preantral follicles in situ within ovarian cortical fragments.