Theory for normal and impaired experience-dependent plasticity in neocortex of adult rats

A hybrid model to study how late long-term potentiation is affected by faulty molecules in an intraneuronal signaling network regulating transcription factor CREB

Systems biology analysis of intracellular signaling networks has tremendously expanded our understanding of normal and diseased cell behaviors and has revealed paths to finding proper therapeutic molecular targets. When it comes to neurons in the human brain, analysis of intraneuronal signaling networks provides invaluable information on learning, memory and cognition-related disorders, as well as potential therapeutic targets. However, neurons in the human brain form a highly complex neural network that, among its many roles, is also responsible for learning, memory formation and cognition. Given the impairment of these processes in mental and psychiatric disorders, one can envision that analyzing interneuronal processes, together with analyzing intraneuronal signaling networks, can result in a better understanding of the pathology and, subsequently, more effective target discovery. In this paper, a hybrid model is introduced, composed of the long-term potentiation (LTP) interneuronal process and an intraneuronal signaling network regulating CREB. LTP refers to an increased synaptic strength over a long period of time among neurons, typically induced upon occurring an activity that generates high-frequency stimulations (HFS) in the brain, and CREB is a transcription factor known to be highly involved in important functions of the cognitive and executive human brain such as learning and memory. The hybrid LTP-signaling model is analyzed using a proposed molecular fault diagnosis method. It allows to study the importance of various signaling molecules according to how much they affect an intercellular phenomenon when they are faulty, i.e. dysfunctional. This paper is intended to suggest another angle for understanding the pathology and therapeutic target discovery by classifying and ranking various intraneuronal signaling molecules based on how much their faulty behaviors affect an interneuronal process. Possible relations between the introduced hybrid analysis and the previous purely intracellular analysis are investigated in the paper as well.

Deficits in Behavioral Functions of Intact Barrel Cortex Following Lesions of Homotopic Contralateral Cortex

Focal unilateral injuries to the somatosensory whisker barrel cortex have been shown cause long-lasting deficits in the activity and experience-dependent plasticity of neurons in the intact contralateral barrel cortex. However, the long-term effect of these deficits on behavioral functions of the intact contralesional cortex is not clear. In this study, we used the “Gap-crossing task” a barrel cortex-dependent, whisker-sensitive, tactile behavior to test the hypothesis that unilateral lesions of the somatosensory cortex would affect behavioral functions of the intact somatosensory cortex and degrade the execution of a bilaterally learnt behavior. Adult rats were trained to perform the Gap-crossing task using whiskers on both sides of the face. The barrel cortex was then lesioned unilaterally by subpial aspiration. As observed in other studies, when rats used whiskers that directly projected to the lesioned hemisphere the performance of Gap-crossing was drastically compromised, perhaps due to direct effect of lesion. Significant and persistent deficits were present when the lesioned rats performed Gap-crossing task using whiskers that projected to the intact cortex. The deficits were specific to performance of the task at the highest levels of sensitivity. Comparable deficits were seen when normal, bilaterally trained, rats performed the Gap-crossing task with only the whiskers on one side of the face or when they used only two rows of whiskers (D row and E row) intact on both side of the face. These findings indicate that the prolonged impairment in execution of the learnt task by rats with unilateral lesions of somatosensory cortex could be because sensory inputs from one set of whiskers to the intact cortex is insufficient to provide adequate sensory information at higher thresholds of detection. Our data suggest that optimal performance of somatosensory behavior requires dynamic activity-driven interhemispheric interactions from the entire somatosensory inputs between homotopic areas of the cerebral cortex. These results imply that focal unilateral cortical injuries, including those in humans, are likely to have widespread bilateral effects on information processing including in intact areas of the cortex.

Chromatin Switches during Neural Cell Differentiation and Their Dysregulation by Prenatal Alcohol Exposure

Prenatal alcohol exposure causes persistent neuropsychiatric deficits included under the term fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD). Cellular identity emerges from a cascade of intrinsic and extrinsic (involving cell-cell interactions and signaling) processes that are partially initiated and maintained through changes in chromatin structure. Prenatal alcohol exposure influences neuronal and astrocyte development, permanently altering brain connectivity. Prenatal alcohol exposure also alters chromatin structure through histone and DNA modifications. However, the data linking alcohol-induced differentiation changes with developmental alterations in chromatin structure remain to be elucidated. In the first part of this review, we discuss the sequence of chromatin structural changes involved in neural cell differentiation during normal development. We then discuss the effects of prenatal alcohol on developmental histone modifications and DNA methylation in the context of neurogenesis and astrogliogenesis. We attempt to synthesize the developmental literature with the FASD literature, proposing that alcohol-induced changes to chromatin structure account for altered neurogenesis and astrogliogenesis as well as altered neuron and astrocyte differentiation. Together these changes may contribute to the cognitive and behavioral abnormalities in FASD. Future studies using standardized alcohol exposure paradigms at specific developmental stages will advance the understanding of how chromatin structural changes impact neural cell fate and maturation in FASD.

A Voltage-Based STDP Rule Combined with Fast BCM-Like Metaplasticity Accounts for LTP and Concurrent "Heterosynaptic" LTD in the Dentate Gyrus In Vivo

Long-term potentiation (LTP) and long-term depression (LTD) are widely accepted to be synaptic mechanisms involved in learning and memory. It remains uncertain, however, which particular activity rules are utilized by hippocampal neurons to induce LTP and LTD in behaving animals. Recent experiments in the dentate gyrus of freely moving rats revealed an unexpected pattern of LTP and LTD from high-frequency perforant path stimulation. While 400 Hz theta-burst stimulation (400-TBS) and 400 Hz delta-burst stimulation (400-DBS) elicited substantial LTP of the tetanized medial path input and, concurrently, LTD of the non-tetanized lateral path input, 100 Hz theta-burst stimulation (100-TBS, a normally efficient LTP protocol for in vitro preparations) produced only weak LTP and concurrent LTD. Here we show in a biophysically realistic compartmental granule cell model that this pattern of results can be accounted for by a voltage-based spike-timing-dependent plasticity (STDP) rule combined with a relatively fast Bienenstock-Cooper-Munro (BCM)-like homeostatic metaplasticity rule, all on a background of ongoing spontaneous activity in the input fibers. Our results suggest that, at least for dentate granule cells, the interplay of STDP-BCM plasticity rules and ongoing pre- and postsynaptic background activity determines not only the degree of input-specific LTP elicited by various plasticity-inducing protocols, but also the degree of associated LTD in neighboring non-tetanized inputs, as generated by the ongoing constitutive activity at these synapses.

The vast majority of computational studies that model synaptic plasticity neglect the fact that in vivo neurons exhibit an ongoing spontaneous spiking which affects the dynamics of synaptic changes. Here we study how key components of learning mechanisms in the brain, namely spike timing-dependent plasticity and metaplasticity, interact with spontaneous activity in the input pathways of the neuron. Using biologically realistic simulations we show that ongoing background activity is a key determinant of the degree of long-term potentiation and long-term depression of synaptic transmission between nerve cells in the hippocampus of freely moving animals. This work helps better understand the computational rules which drive synaptic plasticity in vivo.

Enhanced polychronization in a spiking network with metaplasticity

Computational models of metaplasticity have usually focused on the modeling of single synapses (Shouval et al., 2002). In this paper we study the effect of metaplasticity on network behavior. Our guiding assumption is that the primary purpose of metaplasticity is to regulate synaptic plasticity, by increasing it when input is low and decreasing it when input is high. For our experiments we adopt a model of metaplasticity that demonstrably has this effect for a single synapse; our primary interest is in how metaplasticity thus defined affects network-level phenomena. We focus on a network-level phenomenon called polychronicity, that has a potential role in representation and memory. A network with polychronicity has the ability to produce non-synchronous but precisely timed sequences of neural firing events that can arise from strongly connected groups of neurons called polychronous neural groups (Izhikevich et al., 2004). Polychronous groups (PNGs) develop readily when spiking networks are exposed to repeated spatio-temporal stimuli under the influence of spike-timing-dependent plasticity (STDP), but are sensitive to changes in synaptic weight distribution. We use a technique we have recently developed called Response Fingerprinting to show that PNGs formed in the presence of metaplasticity are significantly larger than those with no metaplasticity. A potential mechanism for this enhancement is proposed that links an inherent property of integrator type neurons called spike latency to an increase in the tolerance of PNG neurons to jitter in their inputs.

Prenatal exposure to benzo(a)pyrene impairs later-life cortical neuronal function

Prenatal exposure to environmental contaminants, such as benzo(a)pyrene [B(a)P] has been shown to impair brain development. The overarching hypothesis of our work is that glutamate receptor subunit expression is crucial for cortical evoked responses and that prenatal B(a)P exposure modulates the temporal developmental expression of glutamatergic receptor subunits in the somatosensory cortex. To characterize prenatal B(a)P exposure on the development of cortical function, pregnant Long Evans rats were exposed to low-level B(a)P (300 microg/kg BW) by oral gavage on gestational days 14-17. At this exposure dose, there was no significant effect of B(a)P on (1) the number of pups born per litter, (2) the pre-weaning growth curves and (3) initial and final brain to body weight ratios. Control and B(a)P-exposed offspring were profiled for B(a)P metabolites in plasma and whole brain during the pre-weaning period. No detectable levels of metabolites were found in the control offspring. However, a time-dependent decrease in total metabolite concentration was observed in B(a)P-exposed offspring. On PND100-120, cerebrocortical mRNA expression was determined for the glutamatergic NMDA receptor subunit (NR2B) in control and B(a)P-exposed offspring. Neural activity was also recorded from neurons in primary somatic sensory (barrel) cortex. Semiquantitative PCR from B(a)P-exposed offspring revealed a significant 50% reduction in NR2B mRNA expression in B(a)P-exposed offspring relative to controls. Recordings from B(a)P-exposed offspring revealed that N-methyl-d-aspartate (NMDA) receptor-dependent neuronal activity in barrel cortex evoked by whisker stimulation was also significantly reduced (70%) as compared to controls. Analysis showed that the greatest deficit in cortical neuronal responses occurred in the shorter latency epochs from 5 to 20 ms post-stimulus. The results suggest that in utero exposure to benzo(a)pyrene results in diminished mRNA expression of the NMDA NR2B receptor subunit to result in late life deficits in cortical neuronal activity in the offspring. The findings from this study lead to a strong prediction that in utero exposure to benzo(a)pyrene at a time when synapses are first formed and adjusted in strength by activity in the sensory pathways will produce a strong negative effect on brain function in offspring progeny.

STDP rule endowed with the BCM sliding threshold accounts for hippocampal heterosynaptic plasticity

We have combined the nearest neighbour additive spike-timing-dependent plasticity (STDP) rule with the Bienenstock, Cooper and Munro (BCM) sliding modification threshold in a computational model of heterosynaptic plasticity in the hippocampal dentate gyrus. As a result we can reproduce (1) homosynaptic long-term potentiation of the tetanized input, and (2) heterosynaptic long-term depression of the untetanized input, as observed in real experiments.

Rapid plasticity follows whisker pairing in barrel cortex of the awake rat

Synaptic plasticity can be induced easily throughout life in the rodent somatic sensory cortex. Trimming all but two whiskers on one side of an adult rat's face, called 'whisker pairing', causes the active (intact) whiskers to develop a stronger drive on cortical cells in their respective barrel columns, while inactive (trimmed) whisker efficacy is down-regulated. To date, this type of activity-dependent plasticity has been induced by trimming all but two whiskers, letting the rats explore their environment from 1 day to 1 month, after which cortical responses were analyzed physiologically under anesthesia. Such studies have enhanced our understanding of cortical plasticity, but the anesthesia complicates the examination of changes that occur in the first few hours after whisker trimming. Here we assayed the short-term changes that occur in alert, active animals over a period of hours after whisker trimming. The magnitude of barrel cortex evoked responses was measured in response to stimulation of the cut and paired whiskers of rats under several conditions: (a) whisking in air (control), (b) active whisking of an object by the rat, and (c) epochs of passive whisker stimulation to identify the onset of whisker pairing plasticity changes in cortex. The main difference between whisking in air without contact and passive whisker stimulation is that the former condition induces an increased response to stimulation of inactive cut whiskers, while the latter condition increases the responses to the stimulated whiskers. The results support the conclusion that whisker pairing plasticity in barrel cortex occurs within 4 h after whisker trimming in an awake, alert animal.

Gestational 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin exposure effects on sensory cortex function

Gestational exposure to environmental contaminants such as 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD) poses a significant threat to normal growth and differentiation of the developing brain. To characterize the impact of gestational TCDD exposure on subsequent cortical function, pregnant Long Evans rats were exposed to a single acute dose (100 or 700ng/kg b.w. via gavage) on gestational day 15. This dosing regimen had no significant effect on birth index. After the TCDD-exposed animals were born and reached maturity, neural activity was recorded under urethane anesthesia from neurons in primary somatic sensory cortex. Spontaneous activity was reduced by approximately 50% in barrel cortex compared to corn oil vehicle controls. The magnitude of neuronal response to sensory (whisker) stimuli also was significantly reduced, and responses did not achieve control levels at any stimulus intensity. The greatest deficit was in the short latency component of the cortical responses. These decrements in cortical responsiveness were present in young F1 generation TCDD-exposed animals and persisted for up to 180 days. Because glutamate receptors are crucial to the evoked responses and show developmental regulation, selected iontotropic glutamate receptor subunits (NMDA NR2A+NR2B and GluR1) were profiled for RNA levels in the cortex of F1 generation rats. The expression of NR2B (NMDA receptor) and GluR1 (AMPA receptor) subunits was significantly reduced in the TCDD-exposed F1 generation animals compared to vehicle controls. The results indicate that gestational TCDD exposure results in cortical deficits that are paralled by diminished expression of certain NMDA and AMPA receptor subunits at a time when synapses are being formed for the first time in cortex.

Effect of prenatal exposure to ethanol on glutamate and GABA immunoreactivity in macaque somatosensory and motor cortices: Critical timing of exposure

The present study explored the effects of gestational ethanol exposure on enduring changes in the distribution of projection neurons and local circuit neurons in somatosensory/motor cortex. Critical events in corticogenesis occur during macaque gestation: the first six weeks of gestation include the period of primary stem cell production and the next 18 weeks are marked by the birth, migration, early differentiation, and death of cortical neurons. Monkeys were exposed to ethanol (or saline) one day per week during the first six or during the entire 24 weeks of gestation. Offspring were killed as adolescents. Projection neurons and local circuit neurons were identified immunohistochemically with antibodies directed against glutamate and anti-GABA, respectively. In all animals, both projection neurons and local circuit neurons were distributed in all laminae of both somatosensory and motor cortices. Ethanol did not affect the size of Cresyl Violet-stained, glutamate-positive, or GABA-immunolabeled somata, however, it did decrease neuronal density. The total density of Cresyl Violet-stained neurons was reduced in monkeys treated with ethanol (or saline) one day per week during the first six weeks of gestation and during the entire 24 weeks of gestation. Similar reductions were detected for glutamate- and GABA-positive neurons. The densities of Cresyl Violet-stained and of glutamate- and GABA-expressing neurons were reduced in all cortical layers. The only exception was layer V which was unaffected in monkeys treated with ethanol (or saline) one day per week during the first six weeks of gestation and during the entire 24 weeks of gestation. Thus, the parallel effects on both neuronal subpopulations suggest that ethanol targets a population of undetermined neuronal precursors.

Tactile foveation in the star-nosed mole

Star-nosed moles have a specialized somatosensory system with 22 mechanosensory appendages surrounding the nostrils. A pair of appendages (the 11th pair on the ventral midline) acts as the tactile fovea and is used for detailed investigations. Here we used a high speed video camera to document movements of the star while moles searched for small prey items. Mole foraging behavior was very fast; the star, which is just over a centimeter in diameter, was touched to different areas of the environment approximately 13 times per second. This suggests that a mole foraging without interruption could potentially investigate 46,000 cm2 of surface area per hour. In 100% of 526 trials in which prey was identified and eaten, star-nosed moles made rapid, saccadic movements of the star to investigate the contacted prey with the foveal appendages. The movements of the star were similar to visual saccades in other species. Maximum velocity of the star during saccades was approximately 40 cm/s, and most saccades were between 30 and 60 ms in duration. As in the primate visual system, small corrective saccades were often needed to accurately foveate. We quantified the number of contacts different appendages made with prey items of various sizes during each encounter and compared this distribution to a previously proposed simulation of star movements during prey encounters. The behavior pattern and the simulation produced similar distributions of contact between the appendages and prey, and both distributions were closely correlated with the degree of cortical magnification of the appendage representations in primary somatosensory cortex (S1).

Lesions of mature barrel field cortex interfere with sensory processing and plasticity in connected areas of the contralateral hemisphere

Lesions of primary sensory cortex produce impairments in brain function as an outcome of the direct tissue damage. In addition, indirect lesion effects have been described that consist of functional deficits in areas sharing neural connections with the damaged area. The present study characterizes interhemispheric deficits produced as a result of unilateral lesions of the entire vibrissa representation of S-I barrel field cortex (BFC) in adult rats using single-neuron recording under urethane anesthesia. After unilateral lesions of adult BFC, responses of neurons in the contralateral homotopic BFC are severely depressed. Background (spontaneous) activity is reduced by approximately 80%, responses to test stimuli applied to the whiskers are reduced by approximately 50%, and onset of synaptic plasticity induced by trimming all but two whiskers ("whisker-pairing plasticity") is delayed over sevenfold compared with sham-lesion control animals. These deficits persist with only slight improvement for at least 4 months after lesion. Both fast-spiking and regular-spiking neuron responses are diminished contralateral to the lesion, as are cells above, below, and within the cortical barrels. Enriched environment experience increased the magnitude of responses and accelerated the rate of synaptic plasticity but did not restore response magnitude to control levels. Deficiencies in evoked responses and synaptic plasticity are primarily restricted to areas that share direct axonal connections with the lesioned cortex, because equivalently sized lesions of visual cortex produce minimal deficits in contralateral BFC function. These results indicate that interhemispheric deficits consist of remarkable and persistent decrements in sensory processing at the single-neuron level and support the idea that the deficits are somehow linked to the shared neural connections with the area of brain damage.

Lesions of mature barrel field cortex interfere with sensory processing and plasticity in connected areas of the contralateral hemisphere

Lesions of primary sensory cortex produce impairments in brain function as an outcome of the direct tissue damage. In addition, indirect lesion effects have been described that consist of functional deficits in areas sharing neural connections with the damaged area. The present study characterizes interhemispheric deficits produced as a result of unilateral lesions of the entire vibrissa representation of S-I barrel field cortex (BFC) in adult rats using single-neuron recording under urethane anesthesia. After unilateral lesions of adult BFC, responses of neurons in the contralateral homotopic BFC are severely depressed. Background (spontaneous) activity is reduced by approximately 80%, responses to test stimuli applied to the whiskers are reduced by approximately 50%, and onset of synaptic plasticity induced by trimming all but two whiskers ("whisker-pairing plasticity") is delayed over sevenfold compared with sham-lesion control animals. These deficits persist with only slight improvement for at least 4 months after lesion. Both fast-spiking and regular-spiking neuron responses are diminished contralateral to the lesion, as are cells above, below, and within the cortical barrels. Enriched environment experience increased the magnitude of responses and accelerated the rate of synaptic plasticity but did not restore response magnitude to control levels. Deficiencies in evoked responses and synaptic plasticity are primarily restricted to areas that share direct axonal connections with the lesioned cortex, because equivalently sized lesions of visual cortex produce minimal deficits in contralateral BFC function. These results indicate that interhemispheric deficits consist of remarkable and persistent decrements in sensory processing at the single-neuron level and support the idea that the deficits are somehow linked to the shared neural connections with the area of brain damage.

Rapid, experience-dependent changes in levels of synaptic zinc in primary somatosensory cortex of the adult mouse

Electrophysiological studies have established that the adult cerebral cortex undergoes immediate functional reorganizations after perturbations of the sensory periphery. These activity-dependent modifications are thought to be mediated via the rapid regulation of the synaptic strength of existing connections. Recent studies have implicated synaptic zinc as contributing to activity-dependent mechanisms of cortical plasticity, such as long-term potentiation and long-term depression, by virtue of its potent ability to modulate glutamatergic neurotransmission. To investigate the role of synaptic zinc in cortical plasticity, we examined changes in the barrel-specific distribution of zinc in axon terminals innervating the primary somatosensory cortex of adult mice at different time points after whisker plucking. In layer IV of normal adult mice, zinc staining in the barrel field was characterized by intense staining in inter-barrel septae and low levels of staining in barrel hollows. Within 3 hr, and up to 1 week after the removal of a row of whiskers, zinc staining increased significantly in barrel hollows corresponding to the plucked whiskers. With longer survival times, levels of zinc staining gradually declined in deprived barrel hollows, returning to normal levels by 2-3 weeks after whisker removal. Increased levels of zinc staining in deprived barrel hollows were highly, negatively correlated with the length of whiskers as they regrew. These results indicate that levels of synaptic zinc in the neocortex are rapidly regulated by changes in sensory experience and suggest that zinc may participate in the plastic changes that normally occur in the cortex on a moment-to-moment basis.