Astrocyte glucocorticoid receptor signalling restricts neuronal plasticity

Animals Animal care and surgical procedures were approved and overseen by the Harvard University Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee and the Harvard Center for Comparative Medicine or the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee at Boston Children’s Hospital. The following mouse lines were used: C57BL/6 (Jackson Laboratory, 000664), GR fl/fl (Jackson Laboratory, 021021), Vglut1 cre (Jackson Laboratory, 023527), Vgat cre (Jackson Laboratory, 028862), Olig2 cre (Jackson Laboratory, 025567), Sun1-GFP fl/fl (Jackson Laboratory, 021039), and Pvalb FlpO (Jackson Laboratory, 022730). Mice were maintained in a reverse 12 h light:12 h dark cycle (22:00–10:00) in a temperature- and humidity-controlled environment and provided food and water ad libitum. For DR conditions, mice were maintained in chronic darkness until collection. To control for circadian rhythm and to prevent light stimulation of DR mice, mice were collected under red light between 10:00–12:00 (Zeitgeiber time 12–14 h) for all genomic, imaging, ELISA and LC–MS experiments. Male and female mice were randomly assigned to experimental groups and used in similar proportions. For the developmental genomic experiments, mice were collected between P7 and P35. Details of animal age and sex are indicated in each protocol section. For imaging experiments, mice were collected at P21, P28, P35 and 8–12-weeks of age (adult). For ELISA and LC–MS experiments, serum samples were collected at P10, P14, P21 and P28. …