The long-term goal of the Garcia Keller laboratory is to identify the neurological mechanisms that underlie stress-induced vulnerability in the development of substance use disorders (SUDs), and in doing so, rationally design pharmacotherapeutic treatments. Converging epidemiological studies indicate that a history of acute life-threatening events increases the incidence of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and a diagnosis of PTSD carries 30-50% comorbidity with SUDs. Such comorbidity results in greater drug use and poorer treatment outcomes. The lab uses a preclinical rodent model to understand how an acute stressful event can lead to addiction, not only facilitating drug self-administration but also precipitating relapse.

Current ongoing projects aimed to 1) understand the neurocircuitry and cell-type specificity involved in stress and addiction using calcium imaging, 2) study the role of the pentapartite synapse in stress and addiction, first focusing in microglia's role and 3) study novel therapeutic treatments for PSTD and SUD targeting key genes/proteins of interest.

The CGK lab is starting its GitHub with two main codes, CellSelect-3DMorph and Calcium Imaging Analysis Code.

CellSelect-3DMorph is a powerful tool for analyzing cell morphology from 3D images by reconstructing cells from fluorescent pixels. It measures multiple cellular parameters including cell volume, territorial volume, ramification index, branch length, number of branches, endpoints, and more. As its name suggests, CellSelect adds the ability to reject cells that are not fully within the image frame or whose morphology cannot be properly calculated, ensuring more accurate results.

The tool is available in two versions:

• A MATLAB script for users with MATLAB installation
• A standalone Windows application that doesn't require MATLAB

CellSelect-3DMorph is a fork of Elisa York's 3DMorph, enhanced with new features and improvements.

Pipeline for calcium imaging future updates to come.