Credit: Kevin Noguchi
Dark purple spots in the images of mouse brains indicate dying neurons. The brain of a mouse infected with a strain of Zika virus from Brazil (right) is shrunken and has more dying cells compared with that of a mouse infected with a strain from French Polynesia (left). Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have found that the strain of Zika that circulated in Brazil during the microcephaly epidemic that began in 2015 was particularly damaging to the developing brain.