A compact holographic projector module for high-resolution 3D multi-site two-photon photostimulation

Probing multiplexed basal dendritic computations using two-photon 3D holographic uncaging

Basal dendrites of layer 5 cortical pyramidal neurons exhibit Na+ and N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor (NMDAR) regenerative spikes and are uniquely poised to influence somatic output. Nevertheless, due to technical limitations, how multibranch basal dendritic integration shapes and enables multiplexed barcoding of synaptic streams remains poorly mapped. Here, we combine 3D two-photon holographic transmitter uncaging, whole-cell dynamic clamp, and biophysical modeling to reveal how synchronously activated synapses (distributed and clustered) across multiple basal dendritic branches are multiplexed under quiescent and in vivo-like conditions. While dendritic regenerative Na+ spikes promote millisecond somatic spike precision, distributed synaptic inputs and NMDAR spikes regulate gain. These concomitantly occurring dendritic nonlinearities enable multiplexed information transfer amid an ongoing noisy background, including under back-propagating voltage resets, by barcoding the axo-somatic spike structure. Our results unveil a multibranch dendritic integration framework in which dendritic nonlinearities are critical for multiplexing different spatial-temporal synaptic input patterns, enabling optimal feature binding.

Holographic microscope and its biological application

Holographic structured illumination combined with optogenetics enables patterned stimulation of neurons and glial cells in an intact living brain. Moreover, in vivo functional imaging of cellular activity with recent advanced microscope technologies allows for visualization of the cellular responses during learning, emotion and cognition. Integrating these techniques can be used to verify the link between cell function and behavior output. However, there are technical limitations to stimulate multiple cells with high spatial and temporal resolution with available techniques of optogenetic stimulation. Here, we summarized a two-photon microscope combined with holographic system to stimulate multiple cells with high spatial and temporal resolution for living mice and their biological application.

Probing neural codes with two-photon holographic optogenetics

Optogenetics ushered in a revolution in how neuroscientists interrogate brain function. Because of technical limitations, the majority of optogenetic studies have used low spatial resolution activation schemes that limit the types of perturbations that can be made. However, neural activity manipulations at finer spatial scales are likely to be important to more fully understand neural computation. Spatially precise multiphoton holographic optogenetics promises to address this challenge and opens up many new classes of experiments that were not previously possible. More specifically, by offering the ability to recreate extremely specific neural activity patterns in both space and time in functionally defined ensembles of neurons, multiphoton holographic optogenetics could allow neuroscientists to reveal fundamental aspects of the neural codes for sensation, cognition and behavior that have been beyond reach. This Review summarizes recent advances in multiphoton holographic optogenetics that substantially expand its capabilities, highlights outstanding technical challenges and provides an overview of the classes of experiments it can execute to test and validate key theoretical models of brain function. Multiphoton holographic optogenetics could substantially accelerate the pace of neuroscience discovery by helping to close the loop between experimental and theoretical neuroscience, leading to fundamental new insights into nervous system function and disorder.

Spatio-temporal parameters for optical probing of neuronal activity

The challenge to understand the complex neuronal circuit functions in the mammalian brain has brought about a revolution in light-based neurotechnologies and optogenetic tools. However, while recent seminal works have shown excellent insights on the processing of basic functions such as sensory perception, memory, and navigation, understanding more complex brain functions is still unattainable with current technologies. We are just scratching the surface, both literally and figuratively. Yet, the path towards fully understanding the brain is not totally uncertain. Recent rapid technological advancements have allowed us to analyze the processing of signals within dendritic arborizations of single neurons and within neuronal circuits. Understanding the circuit dynamics in the brain requires a good appreciation of the spatial and temporal properties of neuronal activity. Here, we assess the spatio-temporal parameters of neuronal responses and match them with suitable light-based neurotechnologies as well as photochemical and optogenetic tools. We focus on the spatial range that includes dendrites and certain brain regions (e.g., cortex and hippocampus) that constitute neuronal circuits. We also review some temporal characteristics of some proteins and ion channels responsible for certain neuronal functions. With the aid of the photochemical and optogenetic markers, we can use light to visualize the circuit dynamics of a functioning brain. The challenge to understand how the brain works continue to excite scientists as research questions begin to link macroscopic and microscopic units of brain circuits.

Olfactory bulb granule cells: specialized to link coactive glomerular columns for percept generation and discrimination of odors

The role of granule cells in olfactory processing is surrounded by several enigmatic observations, such as the purpose of reciprocal spines and the mechanisms for GABA release, the apparently low firing activity and recurrent inhibitory drive of granule cells, the missing proof for functional reciprocal connectivity, and the apparently negligible contribution to lateral inhibition. Here, we summarize recent results with regard to both the mechanisms of GABA release and the behavioral relevance of granule cell activity during odor discrimination. We outline a novel hypothesis that has the potential to resolve most of these enigmas and allows further predictions on the function of granule cells in odor processing. Briefly, recent findings imply that GABA release from the reciprocal spine requires a local spine action potential and the cooperative action of NMDA receptors and high voltage-activated Ca2+ channels. Thus, lateral inhibition is conditional on activity in the principal neurons connected to a granule cell and tightly intertwined with recurrent inhibition. This notion allows us to infer that lateral inhibition between principal neurons occurs "on demand," i.e., selectively on coactive mitral and tufted cells, and thus can provide directed, dynamically switched lateral inhibition in a sensory system with 1000 input channels organized in glomerular columns. The mechanistic underpinnings of this hypothesis concur with findings from odor discrimination behavior in mice with synaptic proteins deleted in granule cells. In summary, our hypothesis explains the unusual microcircuit of the granule cell reciprocal spine as a means of olfactory combinatorial coding.

Dendritic integration in olfactory bulb granule cells upon simultaneous multispine activation: Low thresholds for nonlocal spiking activity

The inhibitory axonless olfactory bulb granule cells form reciprocal dendrodendritic synapses with mitral and tufted cells via large spines, mediating recurrent and lateral inhibition. As a case in point for dendritic transmitter release, rat granule cell dendrites are highly excitable, featuring local Na+ spine spikes and global Ca2+- and Na+-spikes. To investigate the transition from local to global signaling, we performed holographic, simultaneous 2-photon uncaging of glutamate at up to 12 granule cell spines, along with whole-cell recording and dendritic 2-photon Ca2+ imaging in acute juvenile rat brain slices. Coactivation of less than 10 reciprocal spines was sufficient to generate diverse regenerative signals that included regional dendritic Ca2+-spikes and dendritic Na+-spikes (D-spikes). Global Na+-spikes could be triggered in one third of granule cells. Individual spines and dendritic segments sensed the respective signal transitions as increments in Ca2+ entry. Dendritic integration as monitored by the somatic membrane potential was mostly linear until a threshold number of spines was activated, at which often D-spikes along with supralinear summation set in. As to the mechanisms supporting active integration, NMDA receptors (NMDARs) strongly contributed to all aspects of supralinearity, followed by dendritic voltage-gated Na+- and Ca2+-channels, whereas local Na+ spine spikes, as well as morphological variables, barely mattered. Because of the low numbers of coactive spines required to trigger dendritic Ca2+ signals and thus possibly lateral release of GABA onto mitral and tufted cells, we predict that thresholds for granule cell-mediated bulbar lateral inhibition are low. Moreover, D-spikes could provide a plausible substrate for granule cell-mediated gamma oscillations.