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Gale SD, Strawder C, Bennett C, Mihalas S, Koch C, Olsen SR. Backward masking in mice requires visual cortex. Nat Neurosci 2024; 27:129-136. [PMID: 37957319 DOI: 10.1038/s41593-023-01488-0] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/06/2023] [Accepted: 10/10/2023] [Indexed: 11/15/2023]
Abstract
Visual masking can reveal the timescale of perception, but the underlying circuit mechanisms are not understood. Here we describe a backward masking task in mice and humans in which the location of a stimulus is potently masked. Humans report reduced subjective visibility that tracks behavioral deficits. In mice, both masking and optogenetic silencing of visual cortex (V1) reduce performance over a similar timecourse but have distinct effects on response rates and accuracy. Activity in V1 is consistent with masked behavior when quantified over long, but not short, time windows. A dual accumulator model recapitulates both mouse and human behavior. The model and subjects' performance imply that the initial spikes in V1 can trigger a correct response, but subsequent V1 activity degrades performance. Supporting this hypothesis, optogenetically suppressing mask-evoked activity in V1 fully restores accurate behavior. Together, these results demonstrate that mice, like humans, are susceptible to masking and that target and mask information is first confounded downstream of V1.
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Affiliation(s)
- Samuel D Gale
- MindScope Program, Allen Institute, Seattle, WA, USA
| | | | | | | | - Christof Koch
- MindScope Program, Allen Institute, Seattle, WA, USA.
| | - Shawn R Olsen
- MindScope Program, Allen Institute, Seattle, WA, USA.
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2
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Liu J, Liu D, Pu X, Zou K, Xie T, Li Y, Yao H. The Secondary Motor Cortex-striatum Circuit Contributes to Suppressing Inappropriate Responses in Perceptual Decision Behavior. Neurosci Bull 2023; 39:1544-1560. [PMID: 37253985 PMCID: PMC10533474 DOI: 10.1007/s12264-023-01073-2] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/16/2022] [Accepted: 03/08/2023] [Indexed: 06/01/2023] Open
Abstract
The secondary motor cortex (M2) encodes choice-related information and plays an important role in cue-guided actions. M2 neurons innervate the dorsal striatum (DS), which also contributes to decision-making behavior, yet how M2 modulates signals in the DS to influence perceptual decision-making is unclear. Using mice performing a visual Go/No-Go task, we showed that inactivating M2 projections to the DS impaired performance by increasing the false alarm (FA) rate to the reward-irrelevant No-Go stimulus. The choice signal of M2 neurons correlated with behavioral performance, and the inactivation of M2 neurons projecting to the DS reduced the choice signal in the DS. By measuring and manipulating the responses of direct or indirect pathway striatal neurons defined by M2 inputs, we found that the indirect pathway neurons exhibited a shorter response latency to the No-Go stimulus, and inactivating their early responses increased the FA rate. These results demonstrate that the M2-to-DS pathway is crucial for suppressing inappropriate responses in perceptual decision behavior.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jing Liu
- Institute of Neuroscience, State Key Laboratory of Neuroscience, CAS Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, 200031, China
- University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China
| | - Dechen Liu
- Institute of Neuroscience, State Key Laboratory of Neuroscience, CAS Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, 200031, China
| | - Xiaotian Pu
- Institute of Neuroscience, State Key Laboratory of Neuroscience, CAS Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, 200031, China
- University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China
| | - Kexin Zou
- Institute of Neuroscience, State Key Laboratory of Neuroscience, CAS Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, 200031, China
- University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China
| | - Taorong Xie
- Institute of Neuroscience, State Key Laboratory of Neuroscience, CAS Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, 200031, China
| | - Yaping Li
- Institute of Neuroscience, State Key Laboratory of Neuroscience, CAS Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, 200031, China
| | - Haishan Yao
- Institute of Neuroscience, State Key Laboratory of Neuroscience, CAS Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, 200031, China.
- Shanghai Center for Brain Science and Brain-Inspired Intelligence Technology, Shanghai, 201210, China.
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Zheng T, Liversage AR, Tehrani KF, Call JA, Kner PA, Mortensen LJ. Imaging mitochondria through bone in live mice using two-photon fluorescence microscopy with adaptive optics. FRONTIERS IN NEUROIMAGING 2023; 2:959601. [PMID: 37554651 PMCID: PMC10406258 DOI: 10.3389/fnimg.2023.959601] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/01/2022] [Accepted: 01/09/2023] [Indexed: 08/10/2023]
Abstract
INTRODUCTION Mitochondria are extremely important organelles in the regulation of bone marrow and brain activity. However, live imaging of these subcellular features with high resolution in scattering tissues like brain or bone has proven challenging. METHODS In this study, we developed a two-photon fluorescence microscope with adaptive optics (TPFM-AO) for high-resolution imaging, which uses a home-built Shack-Hartmann wavefront sensor (SHWFS) to correct system aberrations and a sensorless approach for correcting low order tissue aberrations. RESULTS Using AO increases the fluorescence intensity of the point spread function (PSF) and achieves fast imaging of subcellular organelles with 400 nm resolution through 85 μm of highly scattering tissue. We achieved ~1.55×, ~3.58×, and ~1.77× intensity increases using AO, and a reduction of the PSF width by ~0.83×, ~0.74×, and ~0.9× at the depths of 0, 50 μm and 85 μm in living mouse bone marrow respectively, allowing us to characterize mitochondrial health and the survival of functioning cells with a field of view of 67.5× 67.5 μm. We also investigate the role of initial signal and background levels in sample correction quality by varying the laser power and camera exposure time and develop an intensity-based criteria for sample correction. DISCUSSION This study demonstrates a promising tool for imaging of mitochondria and other organelles in optically distorting biological environments, which could facilitate the study of a variety of diseases connected to mitochondrial morphology and activity in a range of biological tissues.
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Affiliation(s)
- Tianyi Zheng
- School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Georgia, Athens, GA, United States
| | - Adrian R. Liversage
- School of Chemical, Materials and Biomedical Engineering, University of Georgia, Athens, GA, United States
| | - Kayvan F. Tehrani
- Biophotonics Imaging Laboratory, The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, United States
| | - Jarrod A. Call
- Department of Physiology and Pharmacology, University of Georgia, Athens, GA, United States
| | - Peter A. Kner
- School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Georgia, Athens, GA, United States
| | - Luke J. Mortensen
- School of Chemical, Materials and Biomedical Engineering, University of Georgia, Athens, GA, United States
- Regenerative Bioscience Center, Rhodes Center for ADS, University of Georgia, Athens, GA, United States
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Tuning instability of non-columnar neurons in the salt-and-pepper whisker map in somatosensory cortex. Nat Commun 2022; 13:6611. [PMID: 36329010 PMCID: PMC9633707 DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-34261-1] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/02/2021] [Accepted: 10/19/2022] [Indexed: 11/06/2022] Open
Abstract
Rodent sensory cortex contains salt-and-pepper maps of sensory features, whose structure is not fully known. Here we investigated the structure of the salt-and-pepper whisker somatotopic map among L2/3 pyramidal neurons in somatosensory cortex, in awake mice performing one-vs-all whisker discrimination. Neurons tuned for columnar (CW) and non-columnar (non-CW) whiskers were spatially intermixed, with co-tuned neurons forming local (20 µm) clusters. Whisker tuning was markedly unstable in expert mice, with 35-46% of pyramidal cells significantly shifting tuning over 5-18 days. Tuning instability was highly concentrated in non-CW tuned neurons, and thus was structured in the map. Instability of non-CW neurons was unchanged during chronic whisker paralysis and when mice discriminated individual whiskers, suggesting it is an inherent feature. Thus, L2/3 combines two distinct components: a stable columnar framework of CW-tuned cells that may promote spatial perceptual stability, plus an intermixed, non-columnar surround with highly unstable tuning.
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Wide-Field Calcium Imaging of Neuronal Network Dynamics In Vivo. BIOLOGY 2022; 11:biology11111601. [PMID: 36358302 PMCID: PMC9687960 DOI: 10.3390/biology11111601] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/30/2022] [Revised: 10/28/2022] [Accepted: 10/31/2022] [Indexed: 11/06/2022]
Abstract
A central tenet of neuroscience is that sensory, motor, and cognitive behaviors are generated by the communications and interactions among neurons, distributed within and across anatomically and functionally distinct brain regions. Therefore, to decipher how the brain plans, learns, and executes behaviors requires characterizing neuronal activity at multiple spatial and temporal scales. This includes simultaneously recording neuronal dynamics at the mesoscale level to understand the interactions among brain regions during different behavioral and brain states. Wide-field Ca2+ imaging, which uses single photon excitation and improved genetically encoded Ca2+ indicators, allows for simultaneous recordings of large brain areas and is proving to be a powerful tool to study neuronal activity at the mesoscopic scale in behaving animals. This review details the techniques used for wide-field Ca2+ imaging and the various approaches employed for the analyses of the rich neuronal-behavioral data sets obtained. Also discussed is how wide-field Ca2+ imaging is providing novel insights into both normal and altered neural processing in disease. Finally, we examine the limitations of the approach and new developments in wide-field Ca2+ imaging that are bringing new capabilities to this important technique for investigating large-scale neuronal dynamics.
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Wiesbrock C, Musall S, Kampa BM. A flexible Python-based touchscreen chamber for operant conditioning reveals improved visual perception of cardinal orientations in mice. Front Cell Neurosci 2022; 16:866109. [PMID: 36299493 PMCID: PMC9588922 DOI: 10.3389/fncel.2022.866109] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/30/2022] [Accepted: 09/09/2022] [Indexed: 11/17/2022] Open
Abstract
Natural scenes are composed of a wide range of edge angles and spatial frequencies, with a strong overrepresentation of vertical and horizontal edges. Correspondingly, many mammalian species are much better at discriminating these cardinal orientations compared to obliques. A potential reason for this increased performance could be an increased number of neurons in the visual cortex that are tuned to cardinal orientations, which is likely to be an adaptation to the natural scene statistics. Such biased angular tuning has recently been shown in the mouse primary visual cortex. However, it is still unknown if mice also show a perceptual dominance of cardinal orientations. Here, we describe the design of a novel custom-built touchscreen chamber that allows testing natural scene perception and orientation discrimination performance by applying different task designs. Using this chamber, we applied an iterative convergence towards orientation discrimination thresholds for cardinal or oblique orientations in different cohorts of mice. Surprisingly, the expert discrimination performance was similar for both groups but showed large inter-individual differences in performance and training time. To study the discrimination of cardinal and oblique stimuli in the same mice, we, therefore, applied, a different training regime where mice learned to discriminate cardinal and oblique gratings in parallel. Parallel training revealed a higher task performance for cardinal orientations in an early phase of the training. The performance for both orientations became similar after prolonged training, suggesting that learning permits equally high perceptual tuning towards oblique stimuli. In summary, our custom-built touchscreen chamber offers a flexible tool to test natural visual perception in rodents and revealed a training-induced increase in the perception of oblique gratings. The touchscreen chamber is entirely open-source, easy to build, and freely available to the scientific community to conduct visual or multimodal behavioral studies. It is also based on the FAIR principles for data management and sharing and could therefore serve as a catalyst for testing the perception of complex and natural visual stimuli across behavioral labs.
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Affiliation(s)
- Christopher Wiesbrock
- Systems Neurophysiology, Institute for Zoology, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany
- Research Training Group 2416 MultiSenses—MultiScales, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany
- *Correspondence: Christopher Wiesbrock Björn M. Kampa
| | - Simon Musall
- Systems Neurophysiology, Institute for Zoology, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany
- Bioelectronics, Institute of Biological Information Processing-3, Forschungszentrum Jülich, Jülich, Germany
| | - Björn M. Kampa
- Systems Neurophysiology, Institute for Zoology, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany
- Research Training Group 2416 MultiSenses—MultiScales, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany
- JARA BRAIN, Institute for Neuroscience and Medicine, Forschungszentrum Jülich, Jülich, Germany
- *Correspondence: Christopher Wiesbrock Björn M. Kampa
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7
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You 游文愷 WK, Mysore SP. Dynamics of Visual Perceptual Decision-Making in Freely Behaving Mice. eNeuro 2022; 9:ENEURO.0161-21.2022. [PMID: 35228308 DOI: 10.1101/2020.02.20.958652] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/13/2021] [Revised: 02/14/2022] [Accepted: 02/17/2022] [Indexed: 05/25/2023] Open
Abstract
The temporal dynamics of perceptual decisions offer a key window into the cognitive processes contributing to decision-making. Investigating perceptual dynamics in a genetically tractable animal model can facilitate the subsequent unpacking of the underlying neural mechanisms. Here, we investigated the time course as well as fundamental psychophysical constants governing visual perceptual decision-making in freely behaving mice. We did so by analyzing response accuracy against reaction time (RT), i.e., conditional accuracy, in a series of two-alternative forced choice (2-AFC) orientation discrimination tasks in which we varied target size, luminance, duration, and presence of a foil. Our results quantified two distinct stages in the time course of mouse visual decision-making: a "sensory encoding" stage in which conditional accuracy exhibits a classic trade-off with response speed, and a subsequent "short-term memory (STM)-dependent" stage in which conditional accuracy exhibits a classic asymptotic decay following stimulus offset. We estimated the duration of visual sensory encoding as 200-320 ms across tasks, the lower bound of the duration of STM as ∼1700 ms, and the briefest duration of visual stimulus input that is informative as ≤50 ms. Separately, by varying stimulus onset delay, we demonstrated that the conditional accuracy function (CAF) and RT distribution can be independently modulated, and found that the duration for which mice naturally withhold from responding is a quantitative metric of impulsivity. Taken together, our results establish a quantitative foundation for investigating the neural circuit bases of visual decision dynamics in mice.
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Affiliation(s)
- Wen-Kai You 游文愷
- Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21205
- The Solomon H. Snyder Department of Neuroscience, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21205
| | - Shreesh P Mysore
- Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21205
- The Solomon H. Snyder Department of Neuroscience, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21205
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8
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Dynamics of Visual Perceptual Decision-Making in Freely Behaving Mice. eNeuro 2022; 9:ENEURO.0161-21.2022. [PMID: 35228308 PMCID: PMC8925649 DOI: 10.1523/eneuro.0161-21.2022] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/13/2021] [Revised: 02/14/2022] [Accepted: 02/17/2022] [Indexed: 11/21/2022] Open
Abstract
The temporal dynamics of perceptual decisions offer a key window into the cognitive processes contributing to decision-making. Investigating perceptual dynamics in a genetically tractable animal model can facilitate the subsequent unpacking of the underlying neural mechanisms. Here, we investigated the time course as well as fundamental psychophysical constants governing visual perceptual decision-making in freely behaving mice. We did so by analyzing response accuracy against reaction time (RT), i.e., conditional accuracy, in a series of two-alternative forced choice (2-AFC) orientation discrimination tasks in which we varied target size, luminance, duration, and presence of a foil. Our results quantified two distinct stages in the time course of mouse visual decision-making: a “sensory encoding” stage in which conditional accuracy exhibits a classic trade-off with response speed, and a subsequent “short-term memory (STM)-dependent” stage in which conditional accuracy exhibits a classic asymptotic decay following stimulus offset. We estimated the duration of visual sensory encoding as 200–320 ms across tasks, the lower bound of the duration of STM as ∼1700 ms, and the briefest duration of visual stimulus input that is informative as ≤50 ms. Separately, by varying stimulus onset delay, we demonstrated that the conditional accuracy function (CAF) and RT distribution can be independently modulated, and found that the duration for which mice naturally withhold from responding is a quantitative metric of impulsivity. Taken together, our results establish a quantitative foundation for investigating the neural circuit bases of visual decision dynamics in mice.
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9
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Montgomery DP, Hayden DJ, Chaloner FA, Cooke SF, Bear MF. Stimulus-Selective Response Plasticity in Primary Visual Cortex: Progress and Puzzles. Front Neural Circuits 2022; 15:815554. [PMID: 35173586 PMCID: PMC8841555 DOI: 10.3389/fncir.2021.815554] [Citation(s) in RCA: 12] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/15/2021] [Accepted: 12/29/2021] [Indexed: 11/23/2022] Open
Abstract
Stimulus-selective response plasticity (SRP) is a robust and lasting modification of primary visual cortex (V1) that occurs in response to exposure to novel visual stimuli. It is readily observed as a pronounced increase in the magnitude of visual evoked potentials (VEPs) recorded in response to phase-reversing grating stimuli in neocortical layer 4. The expression of SRP at the individual neuron level is equally robust, but the qualities vary depending on the neuronal type and how activity is measured. This form of plasticity is highly selective for stimulus features such as stimulus orientation, spatial frequency, and contrast. Several key insights into the significance and underlying mechanisms of SRP have recently been made. First, it occurs concomitantly and shares core mechanisms with behavioral habituation, indicating that SRP reflects the formation of long-term familiarity that can support recognition of innocuous stimuli. Second, SRP does not manifest within a recording session but only emerges after an off-line period of several hours that includes sleep. Third, SRP requires not only canonical molecular mechanisms of Hebbian synaptic plasticity within V1, but also the opposing engagement of two key subclasses of cortical inhibitory neuron: the parvalbumin- and somatostatin-expressing GABAergic interneurons. Fourth, pronounced shifts in the power of cortical oscillations from high frequency (gamma) to low frequency (alpha/beta) oscillations provide respective readouts of the engagement of these inhibitory neuronal subtypes following familiarization. In this article we will discuss the implications of these findings and the outstanding questions that remain to gain a deeper understanding of this striking form of experience-dependent plasticity.
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Affiliation(s)
- Daniel P. Montgomery
- Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, The Picower Institute for Learning and Memory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, United States
| | - Dustin J. Hayden
- Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, The Picower Institute for Learning and Memory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, United States
| | - Francesca A. Chaloner
- MRC Centre for Neurodevelopmental Disorders (CNDD), King’s College London, London, United Kingdom
- Department of Basic and Clinical Neuroscience, The Maurice Wohl Clinical Neuroscience Institute, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King’s College London, London, United Kingdom
| | - Samuel F. Cooke
- MRC Centre for Neurodevelopmental Disorders (CNDD), King’s College London, London, United Kingdom
- Department of Basic and Clinical Neuroscience, The Maurice Wohl Clinical Neuroscience Institute, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King’s College London, London, United Kingdom
| | - Mark F. Bear
- Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, The Picower Institute for Learning and Memory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, United States
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10
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Lyamzin DR, Aoki R, Abdolrahmani M, Benucci A. Probabilistic discrimination of relative stimulus features in mice. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2021; 118:e2103952118. [PMID: 34301903 PMCID: PMC8325293 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2103952118] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/26/2022] Open
Abstract
During perceptual decision-making, the brain encodes the upcoming decision and the stimulus information in a mixed representation. Paradigms suitable for studying decision computations in isolation rely on stimulus comparisons, with choices depending on relative rather than absolute properties of the stimuli. The adoption of tasks requiring relative perceptual judgments in mice would be advantageous in view of the powerful tools available for the dissection of brain circuits. However, whether and how mice can perform a relative visual discrimination task has not yet been fully established. Here, we show that mice can solve a complex orientation discrimination task in which the choices are decoupled from the orientation of individual stimuli. Moreover, we demonstrate a typical discrimination acuity of 9°, challenging the common belief that mice are poor visual discriminators. We reached these conclusions by introducing a probabilistic choice model that explained behavioral strategies in 40 mice and demonstrated that the circularity of the stimulus space is an additional source of choice variability for trials with fixed difficulty. Furthermore, history biases in the model changed with task engagement, demonstrating behavioral sensitivity to the availability of cognitive resources. In conclusion, our results reveal that mice adopt a diverse set of strategies in a task that decouples decision-relevant information from stimulus-specific information, thus demonstrating their usefulness as an animal model for studying neural representations of relative categories in perceptual decision-making research.
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Affiliation(s)
- Dmitry R Lyamzin
- RIKEN Center for Brain Science, RIKEN, Wako-shi 351-0198, Japan;
| | - Ryo Aoki
- RIKEN Center for Brain Science, RIKEN, Wako-shi 351-0198, Japan
| | | | - Andrea Benucci
- RIKEN Center for Brain Science, RIKEN, Wako-shi 351-0198, Japan;
- Department of Mathematical Informatics, Graduate School of Information Science and Technology, University of Tokyo, Bunkyo City 113-0032, Japan
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11
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Sriram B, Li L, Cruz-Martín A, Ghosh A. A Sparse Probabilistic Code Underlies the Limits of Behavioral Discrimination. Cereb Cortex 2021; 30:1040-1055. [PMID: 31403676 PMCID: PMC7132908 DOI: 10.1093/cercor/bhz147] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/11/2018] [Revised: 05/19/2019] [Accepted: 05/20/2019] [Indexed: 11/17/2022] Open
Abstract
The cortical code that underlies perception must enable subjects to perceive the world at time scales relevant for behavior. We find that mice can integrate visual stimuli very quickly (<100 ms) to reach plateau performance in an orientation discrimination task. To define features of cortical activity that underlie performance at these time scales, we measured single-unit responses in the mouse visual cortex at time scales relevant to this task. In contrast to high-contrast stimuli of longer duration, which elicit reliable activity in individual neurons, stimuli at the threshold of perception elicit extremely sparse and unreliable responses in the primary visual cortex such that the activity of individual neurons does not reliably report orientation. Integrating information across neurons, however, quickly improves performance. Using a linear decoding model, we estimate that integrating information over 50–100 neurons is sufficient to account for behavioral performance. Thus, at the limits of visual perception, the visual system integrates information encoded in the probabilistic firing of unreliable single units to generate reliable behavior.
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Affiliation(s)
- Balaji Sriram
- Division of Biology, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093, USA.,Research and Early Development, Biogen, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA
| | - Lillian Li
- Division of Biology, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093, USA
| | - Alberto Cruz-Martín
- Department of Biology.,Neurophotonics Center.,Department of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics, Boston University, Boston, MA 02215, USA
| | - Anirvan Ghosh
- Division of Biology, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093, USA.,Research and Early Development, Biogen, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA
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12
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Smyrnakis I, Papadopouli M, Pallagina G, Smirnakis S. Information Capacity of a Stochastically Responding Neuron Assembly. Neurocomputing 2021; 436:22-34. [PMID: 34539080 DOI: 10.1016/j.neucom.2020.12.130] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/22/2022]
Abstract
In this work, certain aspects of the structure of the overlapping groups of neurons encoding specific signals are examined. Individual neurons are assumed to respond stochastically to input signal. Identification of a particular signal is assumed to result from the aggregate activity of a group of neurons, which we call information pathway. Conditions for definite response and for non-interference of pathways are derived. These conditions constrain the response properties of individual neurons and the allowed overlap among pathways. Under these constrains, and under the simplifying assumption that all pathways have similar structure, the information capacity of the system is derived. Furthermore, we show that there is a definite advantage in the information capacity if pathway neurons areinterspersed among the neuron assembly.
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Affiliation(s)
- I Smyrnakis
- Institute of Computer Science, Foundation for Research & Technology-Hellas
| | - M Papadopouli
- Institute of Computer Science, Foundation for Research & Technology-Hellas.,Department of Computer Science, University of Crete, Heraklion, Greece
| | - G Pallagina
- Department of Neurology, Brigham and Womens Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston MA 02115
| | - S Smirnakis
- Department of Neurology, Brigham and Womens Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston MA 02115.,Jamaica Plain VA Hospital, Harvard Medical School
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13
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Evaluating Visual Cues Modulates Their Representation in Mouse Visual and Cingulate Cortex. J Neurosci 2021; 41:3531-3544. [PMID: 33687964 DOI: 10.1523/jneurosci.1828-20.2021] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/14/2020] [Revised: 02/12/2021] [Accepted: 02/17/2021] [Indexed: 11/21/2022] Open
Abstract
Choosing an action in response to visual cues relies on cognitive processes, such as perception, evaluation, and prediction, which can modulate visual representations even at early processing stages. In the mouse, it is challenging to isolate cognitive modulations of sensory signals because concurrent overt behavior patterns, such as locomotion, can also have brainwide influences. To address this challenge, we designed a task, in which head-fixed mice had to evaluate one of two visual cues. While their global shape signaled the opportunity to earn reward, the cues provided equivalent local stimulation to receptive fields of neurons in primary visual (V1) and anterior cingulate cortex (ACC). We found that mice evaluated these cues within few hundred milliseconds. During this period, ∼30% of V1 neurons became cue-selective, with preferences for either cue being balanced across the recorded population. This selectivity emerged in response to the behavioral demands because the same neurons could not discriminate the cues in sensory control measurements. In ACC, cue evaluation affected a similar fraction of neurons; emerging selectivity, however, was stronger than in V1, and preferences in the recorded population were biased toward the cue promising reward. Such a biased selectivity regime might allow the mouse to infer the promise of reward simply by the overall level of activity. Together, these experiments isolate the impact of task demands on neural responses in mouse cerebral cortex, and document distinct neural signatures of cue evaluation in V1 and ACC.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Performing a cognitive task, such as evaluating visual cues, not only recruits frontal and parietal brain regions, but also modulates sensory processing stages. We trained mice to evaluate two visual cues, and show that, during this task, ∼30% of neurons recorded in V1 became selective for either cue, although they provided equivalent visual stimulation. We also show that, during cue evaluation, mice frequently move their eyes, even under head fixation, and that ignoring systematic differences in eye position can substantially obscure the modulations seen in V1 neurons. Finally, we document that modulations are stronger in ACC, and biased toward the reward-predicting cue, suggesting a transition in the neural representation of task-relevant information across processing stages in mouse cerebral cortex.
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14
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Kılıç K, Desjardins M, Tang J, Thunemann M, Sunil S, Erdener ŞE, Postnov DD, Boas DA, Devor A. Chronic Cranial Windows for Long Term Multimodal Neurovascular Imaging in Mice. Front Physiol 2021; 11:612678. [PMID: 33551837 PMCID: PMC7862556 DOI: 10.3389/fphys.2020.612678] [Citation(s) in RCA: 11] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/30/2020] [Accepted: 12/18/2020] [Indexed: 01/18/2023] Open
Abstract
Chronic cranial windows allow for longitudinal brain imaging experiments in awake, behaving mice. Different imaging technologies have their unique advantages and combining multiple imaging modalities offers measurements of a wide spectrum of neuronal, glial, vascular, and metabolic parameters needed for comprehensive investigation of physiological and pathophysiological mechanisms. Here, we detail a suite of surgical techniques for installation of different cranial windows targeted for specific imaging technologies and their combination. Following these techniques and practices will yield higher experimental success and reproducibility of results.
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Affiliation(s)
- Kıvılcım Kılıç
- Biomedical Engineering, Boston University, Boston, MA, United States
| | - Michèle Desjardins
- Centre de recherche du CHU de Québec, Université Laval, Quebec City, QC, Canada
| | - Jianbo Tang
- Biomedical Engineering, Boston University, Boston, MA, United States.,Department of Biomedical Engineering, SUSTech, Shenzhen, China
| | - Martin Thunemann
- Biomedical Engineering, Boston University, Boston, MA, United States
| | - Smrithi Sunil
- Biomedical Engineering, Boston University, Boston, MA, United States
| | - Şefik Evren Erdener
- Biomedical Engineering, Boston University, Boston, MA, United States.,Institute of Neurological Sciences and Psychiatry, Hacettepe Üniversitesi, Ankara, Turkey
| | - Dmitry D Postnov
- Biomedical Engineering, Boston University, Boston, MA, United States.,Department of Biomedical Sciences, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark
| | - David A Boas
- Biomedical Engineering, Boston University, Boston, MA, United States
| | - Anna Devor
- Biomedical Engineering, Boston University, Boston, MA, United States
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15
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Kafashan M, Jaffe AW, Chettih SN, Nogueira R, Arandia-Romero I, Harvey CD, Moreno-Bote R, Drugowitsch J. Scaling of sensory information in large neural populations shows signatures of information-limiting correlations. Nat Commun 2021; 12:473. [PMID: 33473113 PMCID: PMC7817840 DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-20722-y] [Citation(s) in RCA: 26] [Impact Index Per Article: 8.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/10/2020] [Accepted: 12/16/2020] [Indexed: 01/29/2023] Open
Abstract
How is information distributed across large neuronal populations within a given brain area? Information may be distributed roughly evenly across neuronal populations, so that total information scales linearly with the number of recorded neurons. Alternatively, the neural code might be highly redundant, meaning that total information saturates. Here we investigate how sensory information about the direction of a moving visual stimulus is distributed across hundreds of simultaneously recorded neurons in mouse primary visual cortex. We show that information scales sublinearly due to correlated noise in these populations. We compartmentalized noise correlations into information-limiting and nonlimiting components, then extrapolate to predict how information grows with even larger neural populations. We predict that tens of thousands of neurons encode 95% of the information about visual stimulus direction, much less than the number of neurons in primary visual cortex. These findings suggest that the brain uses a widely distributed, but nonetheless redundant code that supports recovering most sensory information from smaller subpopulations.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Anna W Jaffe
- Department of Neurobiology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, 02115, USA
| | - Selmaan N Chettih
- Department of Neurobiology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, 02115, USA
| | - Ramon Nogueira
- Center for Theoretical Neuroscience, Mortimer B. Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA
| | - Iñigo Arandia-Romero
- ISAAC Lab, Aragón Institute of Engineering Research, University of Zaragoza, Zaragoza, Spain
- IAS-Research Center for Life, Mind, and Society, Department of Logic and Philosophy of Science, University of the Basque Country, UPV-EHU, Donostia-San Sebastián, Spain
| | | | - Rubén Moreno-Bote
- Center for Brain and Cognition and Department of Information and Communication Technologies, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain
- Serra Húnter Fellow Programme and ICREA Academia, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain
| | - Jan Drugowitsch
- Department of Neurobiology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, 02115, USA.
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16
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Dalgleish HWP, Russell LE, Packer AM, Roth A, Gauld OM, Greenstreet F, Thompson EJ, Häusser M. How many neurons are sufficient for perception of cortical activity? eLife 2020; 9:e58889. [PMID: 33103656 PMCID: PMC7695456 DOI: 10.7554/elife.58889] [Citation(s) in RCA: 54] [Impact Index Per Article: 13.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/13/2020] [Accepted: 10/17/2020] [Indexed: 01/12/2023] Open
Abstract
Many theories of brain function propose that activity in sparse subsets of neurons underlies perception and action. To place a lower bound on the amount of neural activity that can be perceived, we used an all-optical approach to drive behaviour with targeted two-photon optogenetic activation of small ensembles of L2/3 pyramidal neurons in mouse barrel cortex while simultaneously recording local network activity with two-photon calcium imaging. By precisely titrating the number of neurons stimulated, we demonstrate that the lower bound for perception of cortical activity is ~14 pyramidal neurons. We find a steep sigmoidal relationship between the number of activated neurons and behaviour, saturating at only ~37 neurons, and show this relationship can shift with learning. Furthermore, activation of ensembles is balanced by inhibition of neighbouring neurons. This surprising perceptual sensitivity in the face of potent network suppression supports the sparse coding hypothesis, and suggests that cortical perception balances a trade-off between minimizing the impact of noise while efficiently detecting relevant signals.
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Affiliation(s)
- Henry WP Dalgleish
- Wolfson Institute for Biomedical Research, University College LondonLondonUnited Kingdom
| | - Lloyd E Russell
- Wolfson Institute for Biomedical Research, University College LondonLondonUnited Kingdom
| | - Adam M Packer
- Wolfson Institute for Biomedical Research, University College LondonLondonUnited Kingdom
| | - Arnd Roth
- Wolfson Institute for Biomedical Research, University College LondonLondonUnited Kingdom
| | - Oliver M Gauld
- Wolfson Institute for Biomedical Research, University College LondonLondonUnited Kingdom
| | - Francesca Greenstreet
- Wolfson Institute for Biomedical Research, University College LondonLondonUnited Kingdom
| | - Emmett J Thompson
- Wolfson Institute for Biomedical Research, University College LondonLondonUnited Kingdom
| | - Michael Häusser
- Wolfson Institute for Biomedical Research, University College LondonLondonUnited Kingdom
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17
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Gasterstädt I, Jack A, Stahlhut T, Rennau LM, Gonda S, Wahle P. Genetically Encoded Calcium Indicators Can Impair Dendrite Growth of Cortical Neurons. Front Cell Neurosci 2020; 14:570596. [PMID: 33192315 PMCID: PMC7606991 DOI: 10.3389/fncel.2020.570596] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/08/2020] [Accepted: 08/31/2020] [Indexed: 12/11/2022] Open
Abstract
A battery of genetically encoded calcium indicators (GECIs) with different binding kinetics and calcium affinities was developed over the recent years to permit long-term calcium imaging. GECIs are calcium buffers and therefore, expression of GECIs may interfere with calcium homeostasis and signaling pathways important for neuronal differentiation and survival. Our objective was to investigate if the biolistically induced expression of five commonly used GECIs at two postnatal time points (days 14 and 22–25) could affect the morphological maturation of cortical neurons in organotypic slice cultures of rat visual cortex. Expression of GCaMP3 in both time windows, and of GCaMP5G and TN-XXL in the later time window impaired apical and /or basal dendrite growth of pyramidal neurons. With time, the proportion of GECI transfectants with nuclear filling increased, but an only prolonged expression of TN-XXL caused higher levels of neurodegeneration. In multipolar interneurons, only GCaMP3 evoked a transient growth delay during the early time window. GCaMP6m and GCaMP6m-XC were quite “neuron-friendly.” Since growth-impaired neurons might not have the physiological responses typical of age-matched wildtype neurons the results obtained after prolonged developmental expression of certain GECIs might need to be interpreted with caution.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ina Gasterstädt
- Developmental Neurobiology, Faculty of Biology and Biotechnology, Ruhr University Bochum, Bochum, Germany
| | - Alexander Jack
- Developmental Neurobiology, Faculty of Biology and Biotechnology, Ruhr University Bochum, Bochum, Germany
| | - Tobias Stahlhut
- Developmental Neurobiology, Faculty of Biology and Biotechnology, Ruhr University Bochum, Bochum, Germany
| | - Lisa-Marie Rennau
- Developmental Neurobiology, Faculty of Biology and Biotechnology, Ruhr University Bochum, Bochum, Germany
| | - Steffen Gonda
- Developmental Neurobiology, Faculty of Biology and Biotechnology, Ruhr University Bochum, Bochum, Germany
| | - Petra Wahle
- Developmental Neurobiology, Faculty of Biology and Biotechnology, Ruhr University Bochum, Bochum, Germany
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18
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Wang D, Chen Y, Chen Y, Li X, Liu P, Yin Z, Li A. Improved Separation of Odor Responses in Granule Cells of the Olfactory Bulb During Odor Discrimination Learning. Front Cell Neurosci 2020; 14:579349. [PMID: 33192325 PMCID: PMC7581703 DOI: 10.3389/fncel.2020.579349] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/02/2020] [Accepted: 09/14/2020] [Indexed: 01/01/2023] Open
Abstract
In the olfactory bulb, olfactory information is translated into ensemble representations by mitral/tufted cells, and these representations change dynamically in a context-dependent manner. In particular, odor representations in mitral/tufted cells display pattern separation during odor discrimination learning. Although granule cells provide major inhibitory input to mitral/tufted cells and play an important role in pattern separation and olfactory learning, the dynamics of odor responses in granule cells during odor discrimination learning remain largely unknown. Here, we studied odor responses in granule cells of the olfactory bulb using fiber photometry recordings in awake behaving mice. We found that odors evoked reliable, excitatory responses in the granule cell population. Intriguingly, during odor discrimination learning, odor responses in granule cells exhibited improved separation and contained information about odor value. In conclusion, we show that granule cells in the olfactory bulb display learning-related plasticity, suggesting that they may mediate pattern separation in mitral/tufted cells.
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Affiliation(s)
- Dejuan Wang
- Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Brain Disease and Bioinformation, Research Center for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Xuzhou Medical University, Xuzhou, China
| | - Yang Chen
- Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Brain Disease and Bioinformation, Research Center for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Xuzhou Medical University, Xuzhou, China
| | - Yiling Chen
- Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Brain Disease and Bioinformation, Research Center for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Xuzhou Medical University, Xuzhou, China
| | - Xiaowen Li
- Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Brain Disease and Bioinformation, Research Center for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Xuzhou Medical University, Xuzhou, China
| | - Penglai Liu
- Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Brain Disease and Bioinformation, Research Center for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Xuzhou Medical University, Xuzhou, China
| | - Zhaoyang Yin
- Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Brain Disease and Bioinformation, Research Center for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Xuzhou Medical University, Xuzhou, China
| | - Anan Li
- Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Brain Disease and Bioinformation, Research Center for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Xuzhou Medical University, Xuzhou, China
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19
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Malvaut S, Constantinescu VS, Dehez H, Doric S, Saghatelyan A. Deciphering Brain Function by Miniaturized Fluorescence Microscopy in Freely Behaving Animals. Front Neurosci 2020; 14:819. [PMID: 32848576 PMCID: PMC7432153 DOI: 10.3389/fnins.2020.00819] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/20/2020] [Accepted: 07/14/2020] [Indexed: 11/19/2022] Open
Abstract
Animal behavior is regulated by environmental stimuli and is shaped by the activity of neural networks, underscoring the importance of assessing the morpho-functional properties of different populations of cells in freely behaving animals. In recent years, a number of optical tools have been developed to monitor and modulate neuronal and glial activity at the protein, cellular, or network level and have opened up new avenues for studying brain function in freely behaving animals. Tools such as genetically encoded sensors and actuators are now commonly used for studying brain activity and function through their expression in different neuronal ensembles. In parallel, microscopy has also made major progress over the last decades. The advent of miniature microscopes (mini-microscopes also called mini-endoscopes) has become a method of choice for studying brain activity at the cellular and network levels in different brain regions of freely behaving mice. This technique also allows for longitudinal investigations while animals carrying the microscope on their head are performing behavioral tasks. In this review, we will discuss mini-endoscopic imaging and the advantages that these devices offer to research. We will also discuss current limitations of and potential future improvements in mini-endoscopic imaging.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sarah Malvaut
- CERVO Brain Research Center, Quebec City, QC, Canada
- Department of Psychiatry and Neuroscience, Universite Laval, Quebec City, QC, Canada
| | - Vlad-Stefan Constantinescu
- CERVO Brain Research Center, Quebec City, QC, Canada
- Department of Psychiatry and Neuroscience, Universite Laval, Quebec City, QC, Canada
| | | | - Sead Doric
- Doric Lenses Inc., Quebec City, QC, Canada
| | - Armen Saghatelyan
- CERVO Brain Research Center, Quebec City, QC, Canada
- Department of Psychiatry and Neuroscience, Universite Laval, Quebec City, QC, Canada
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20
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Groblewski PA, Ollerenshaw DR, Kiggins JT, Garrett ME, Mochizuki C, Casal L, Cross S, Mace K, Swapp J, Manavi S, Williams D, Mihalas S, Olsen SR. Characterization of Learning, Motivation, and Visual Perception in Five Transgenic Mouse Lines Expressing GCaMP in Distinct Cell Populations. Front Behav Neurosci 2020; 14:104. [PMID: 32655383 PMCID: PMC7324787 DOI: 10.3389/fnbeh.2020.00104] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/14/2020] [Accepted: 05/25/2020] [Indexed: 01/01/2023] Open
Abstract
To study the mechanisms of perception and cognition, neural measurements must be made during behavior. A goal of the Allen Brain Observatory is to map the activity of distinct cortical cell classes underlying visual and behavioral processing. Here we describe standardized methodology for training head-fixed mice on a visual change detection task, and we use our paradigm to characterize learning and behavior of five GCaMP6-expressing transgenic lines. We used automated training procedures to facilitate comparisons across mice. Training times varied, but most transgenic mice learned the behavioral task. Motivation levels also varied across mice. To compare mice in similar motivational states we subdivided sessions into over-, under-, and optimally motivated periods. When motivated, the pattern of perceptual decisions were highly correlated across transgenic lines, although overall performance (d-prime) was lower in one line labeling somatostatin inhibitory cells. These results provide important context for using these mice to map neural activity underlying perception and behavior.
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Affiliation(s)
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | - Shawn R. Olsen
- Allen Institute for Brain Science, Seattle, WA, United States
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21
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Liu D, Deng J, Zhang Z, Zhang ZY, Sun YG, Yang T, Yao H. Orbitofrontal control of visual cortex gain promotes visual associative learning. Nat Commun 2020; 11:2784. [PMID: 32493971 PMCID: PMC7270099 DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-16609-7] [Citation(s) in RCA: 29] [Impact Index Per Article: 7.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/16/2019] [Accepted: 05/14/2020] [Indexed: 01/09/2023] Open
Abstract
The orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) encodes expected outcomes and plays a critical role in flexible, outcome-guided behavior. The OFC projects to primary visual cortex (V1), yet the function of this top-down projection is unclear. We find that optogenetic activation of OFC projection to V1 reduces the amplitude of V1 visual responses via the recruitment of local somatostatin-expressing (SST) interneurons. Using mice performing a Go/No-Go visual task, we show that the OFC projection to V1 mediates the outcome-expectancy modulation of V1 responses to the reward-irrelevant No-Go stimulus. Furthermore, V1-projecting OFC neurons reduce firing during expectation of reward. In addition, chronic optogenetic inactivation of OFC projection to V1 impairs, whereas chronic activation of SST interneurons in V1 improves the learning of Go/No-Go visual task, without affecting the immediate performance. Thus, OFC top-down projection to V1 is crucial to drive visual associative learning by modulating the response gain of V1 neurons to non-relevant stimulus. The orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) encodes expected outcomes and plays a key role in outcome-guided behavior. The authors show here that the top-down projection from the OFC to the visual cortex drives visual associative learning by modulating the response gain of V1 neurons to non-relevant stimuli.
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Affiliation(s)
- Dechen Liu
- Institute of Neuroscience, State Key Laboratory of Neuroscience, CAS Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, 200031, China.,University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China
| | - Juan Deng
- Institute of Neuroscience, State Key Laboratory of Neuroscience, CAS Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, 200031, China
| | - Zhewei Zhang
- Institute of Neuroscience, State Key Laboratory of Neuroscience, CAS Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, 200031, China.,University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China.,Institute of Neuroscience, Key Laboratory of Primate Neurobiology, CAS Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, 200031, China
| | - Zhi-Yu Zhang
- Institute of Neuroscience, State Key Laboratory of Neuroscience, CAS Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, 200031, China.,University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China
| | - Yan-Gang Sun
- Institute of Neuroscience, State Key Laboratory of Neuroscience, CAS Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, 200031, China.,Shanghai Center for Brain Science and Brain-Inspired Intelligence Technology, Shanghai, 201210, China
| | - Tianming Yang
- Institute of Neuroscience, Key Laboratory of Primate Neurobiology, CAS Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, 200031, China.,Shanghai Center for Brain Science and Brain-Inspired Intelligence Technology, Shanghai, 201210, China
| | - Haishan Yao
- Institute of Neuroscience, State Key Laboratory of Neuroscience, CAS Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, 200031, China. .,Shanghai Center for Brain Science and Brain-Inspired Intelligence Technology, Shanghai, 201210, China.
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22
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Coste A, Oktay MH, Condeelis JS, Entenberg D. Intravital Imaging Techniques for Biomedical and Clinical Research. Cytometry A 2020; 97:448-457. [PMID: 31889408 PMCID: PMC7210060 DOI: 10.1002/cyto.a.23963] [Citation(s) in RCA: 28] [Impact Index Per Article: 7.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/16/2019] [Revised: 10/10/2019] [Accepted: 12/18/2019] [Indexed: 12/22/2022]
Abstract
Intravital imaging, the direct visualization of cells and tissues within a living animal, is a technique that has been employed for the better part of a century. The advent of confocal and multiphoton microscopy has dramatically improved the power of intravital imaging, making it possible to obtain optical sections of tissues non-destructively. This review discusses the various techniques used for intravital imaging, describes how intravital imaging provides information about cellular and tissue dynamics not possible to be garnered by other techniques, and details several ways in which intravital imaging is making a direct impact on the clinical care of patients. © 2019 International Society for Advancement of Cytometry.
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Affiliation(s)
- Anouchka Coste
- Department of Surgery, Einstein College of Medicine/Montefiore Medical Center, Bronx, New York
- Department of Anatomy and Structural Biology, Einstein College of Medicine/Montefiore Medical Center, Bronx, New York
- Gruss-Lipper Biophotonics Center, Einstein College of Medicine/Montefiore Medical Center, Bronx, New York
| | - Maja H. Oktay
- Department of Anatomy and Structural Biology, Einstein College of Medicine/Montefiore Medical Center, Bronx, New York
- Gruss-Lipper Biophotonics Center, Einstein College of Medicine/Montefiore Medical Center, Bronx, New York
- Integrated Imaging Program, Einstein College of Medicine/Montefiore Medical Center, Bronx, New York
- Department of Pathology, Einstein College of Medicine/Montefiore Medical Center, Bronx, New York
| | - John S. Condeelis
- Department of Surgery, Einstein College of Medicine/Montefiore Medical Center, Bronx, New York
- Department of Anatomy and Structural Biology, Einstein College of Medicine/Montefiore Medical Center, Bronx, New York
- Gruss-Lipper Biophotonics Center, Einstein College of Medicine/Montefiore Medical Center, Bronx, New York
- Integrated Imaging Program, Einstein College of Medicine/Montefiore Medical Center, Bronx, New York
| | - David Entenberg
- Department of Anatomy and Structural Biology, Einstein College of Medicine/Montefiore Medical Center, Bronx, New York
- Gruss-Lipper Biophotonics Center, Einstein College of Medicine/Montefiore Medical Center, Bronx, New York
- Integrated Imaging Program, Einstein College of Medicine/Montefiore Medical Center, Bronx, New York
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23
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Sweeney Y, Clopath C. Population coupling predicts the plasticity of stimulus responses in cortical circuits. eLife 2020; 9:e56053. [PMID: 32314959 PMCID: PMC7224697 DOI: 10.7554/elife.56053] [Citation(s) in RCA: 18] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/14/2020] [Accepted: 04/16/2020] [Indexed: 12/31/2022] Open
Abstract
Some neurons have stimulus responses that are stable over days, whereas other neurons have highly plastic stimulus responses. Using a recurrent network model, we explore whether this could be due to an underlying diversity in their synaptic plasticity. We find that, in a network with diverse learning rates, neurons with fast rates are more coupled to population activity than neurons with slow rates. This plasticity-coupling link predicts that neurons with high population coupling exhibit more long-term stimulus response variability than neurons with low population coupling. We substantiate this prediction using recordings from the Allen Brain Observatory, finding that a neuron's population coupling is correlated with the plasticity of its orientation preference. Simulations of a simple perceptual learning task suggest a particular functional architecture: a stable 'backbone' of stimulus representation formed by neurons with low population coupling, on top of which lies a flexible substrate of neurons with high population coupling.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yann Sweeney
- Department of Bioengineering, Imperial College LondonLondonUnited Kingdom
| | - Claudia Clopath
- Department of Bioengineering, Imperial College LondonLondonUnited Kingdom
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24
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Krauzlis RJ, Nichols N, Rangarajan KV, McAlonan K, Goldstein S, Yochelson D, Wang L. Visual Psychophysics in Head-Fixed Mice. ACTA ACUST UNITED AC 2020; 92:e95. [PMID: 32216169 DOI: 10.1002/cpns.95] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/11/2022]
Abstract
We describe a set of protocols for doing visual psychophysical experiments in head-fixed mice. The goal of this approach was to conduct in mice the same type of precise and well-controlled tests of visual perception and decision making as is commonly done in primates. For example, these experimental protocols were the basis for our demonstration that mice are capable of visual selective attention in paradigms adapted from classic attention cueing paradigms in primates. Basic Protocol 1 describes how to construct the experimental apparatus, including the removable wheel assembly on which the mice run during the visual tasks, the lick spout used to deliver rewards and detect licks, and the behavioral box that places these components together with the visual displays. We also describe the functions of the computerized control system and the design of the customized head fixture. Basic Protocol 2 describes the preparation of mice for the experiments, including the detailed surgical steps. Basic Protocol 3 describes the transition to a food schedule for the mice and how to operate the experimental apparatus. Basic Protocol 4 outlines the logic of the task design and the steps necessary for training the mice. Finally, Basic Protocol 5 describes how to obtain and analyze the psychometric data. Our methods include several distinctive features, including a custom quick-release method for holding the head and specific strategies for training mice over multiple weeks. Published 2020. U.S. Government. Basic Protocol 1: Experimental apparatus Basic Protocol 2: Head fixture surgery Basic Protocol 3: General operation of the experimental apparatus Basic Protocol 4: Behavioral task design and training Basic Protocol 5: Psychometric data collection and analysis.
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Affiliation(s)
- Richard J Krauzlis
- Laboratory of Sensorimotor Research, National Eye Institute, Bethesda, Maryland
| | - Nick Nichols
- Laboratory of Sensorimotor Research, National Eye Institute, Bethesda, Maryland
| | - Krsna V Rangarajan
- Laboratory of Sensorimotor Research, National Eye Institute, Bethesda, Maryland
| | - Kerry McAlonan
- Laboratory of Sensorimotor Research, National Eye Institute, Bethesda, Maryland
| | - Sheridan Goldstein
- Laboratory of Sensorimotor Research, National Eye Institute, Bethesda, Maryland
| | - Daniel Yochelson
- Laboratory of Sensorimotor Research, National Eye Institute, Bethesda, Maryland
| | - Lupeng Wang
- Laboratory of Sensorimotor Research, National Eye Institute, Bethesda, Maryland
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25
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Gao F, Gao K, He C, Liu M, Hu Y, Ying K, Wan H, Wang P. [ In vitro pathological model of Alzheimer's disease based on neuronal network chip and its real-time dynamic analysis]. SHENG WU YI XUE GONG CHENG XUE ZA ZHI = JOURNAL OF BIOMEDICAL ENGINEERING = SHENGWU YIXUE GONGCHENGXUE ZAZHI 2019; 36:893-901. [PMID: 31875361 PMCID: PMC9935160 DOI: 10.7507/1001-5515.201902014] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/19/2019] [Indexed: 11/03/2022]
Abstract
Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a chronic central neurodegenerative disease. The pathological features of AD are the extracellular deposition of senile plaques formed by amyloid-β oligomers (AβOs) and the intracellular accumulation of neurofibrillary tangles formed by hyperphosphorylated tau protein. In this paper, an in vitro pathological model of AD based on neuronal network chip and its real-time dynamic analysis were presented. The hippocampal neuronal network was cultured on the microelectrode array (MEA) chip and induced by AβOs as an AD model in vitro to simultaneously record two firing patterns from the interneurons and pyramidal neurons. The spatial firing patterns mapping and cross-correlation between channels were performed to validate the degeneration of neuronal network connectivity. This biosensor enabled the detection of the AβOs toxicity responses, and the identification of connectivity and interactions between neuronal networks, which can be a novel technique in the research of AD pathological model in vitro.
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Affiliation(s)
- Fan Gao
- Biosensor National Special Laboratory, Key Laboratory for Biomedical Engineering of Education Ministry, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, P.R.China
| | - Keqiang Gao
- Biosensor National Special Laboratory, Key Laboratory for Biomedical Engineering of Education Ministry, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, P.R.China
| | - Chuanjiang He
- Biosensor National Special Laboratory, Key Laboratory for Biomedical Engineering of Education Ministry, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, P.R.China
| | - Mengxue Liu
- Biosensor National Special Laboratory, Key Laboratory for Biomedical Engineering of Education Ministry, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, P.R.China
| | - Yanjie Hu
- Sir Run Run Shaw Hospital, School of Medicine, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, P.R.China
| | - Kejing Ying
- Sir Run Run Shaw Hospital, School of Medicine, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, P.R.China
| | - Hao Wan
- Biosensor National Special Laboratory, Key Laboratory for Biomedical Engineering of Education Ministry, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, P.R.China
| | - Ping Wang
- Biosensor National Special Laboratory, Key Laboratory for Biomedical Engineering of Education Ministry, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027,
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26
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Audio-visual experience strengthens multisensory assemblies in adult mouse visual cortex. Nat Commun 2019; 10:5684. [PMID: 31831751 PMCID: PMC6908602 DOI: 10.1038/s41467-019-13607-2] [Citation(s) in RCA: 29] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/29/2018] [Accepted: 11/07/2019] [Indexed: 11/09/2022] Open
Abstract
We experience the world through multiple senses simultaneously. To better understand mechanisms of multisensory processing we ask whether inputs from two senses (auditory and visual) can interact and drive plasticity in neural-circuits of the primary visual cortex (V1). Using genetically-encoded voltage and calcium indicators, we find coincident audio-visual experience modifies both the supra and subthreshold response properties of neurons in L2/3 of mouse V1. Specifically, we find that after audio-visual pairing, a subset of multimodal neurons develops enhanced auditory responses to the paired auditory stimulus. This cross-modal plasticity persists over days and is reflected in the strengthening of small functional networks of L2/3 neurons. We find V1 processes coincident auditory and visual events by strengthening functional associations between feature specific assemblies of multimodal neurons during bouts of sensory driven co-activity, leaving a trace of multisensory experience in the cortical network.
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27
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Marinković P, Blumenstock S, Goltstein PM, Korzhova V, Peters F, Knebl A, Herms J. In vivo imaging reveals reduced activity of neuronal circuits in a mouse tauopathy model. Brain 2019; 142:1051-1062. [PMID: 30847469 DOI: 10.1093/brain/awz035] [Citation(s) in RCA: 26] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/16/2018] [Revised: 12/18/2018] [Accepted: 12/26/2018] [Indexed: 01/30/2023] Open
Abstract
Pathological alterations of tau protein play a significant role in the emergence and progression of neurodegenerative disorders. Tauopathies are characterized by detachment of the tau protein from neuronal microtubules, and its subsequent aberrant hyperphosphorylation, aggregation and cellular distribution. The exact nature of tau protein species causing neuronal malfunction and degeneration is still unknown. In the present study, we used mice transgenic for human tau with the frontotemporal dementia with parkinsonism-associated P301S mutation. These mice are prone to develop fibrillar tau inclusions, especially in the spinal cord and brainstem. At the same time, cortical neurons are not as strongly affected by fibrillar tau forms, but rather by soluble tau forms. We took advantage of the possibility to induce formation of neurofibrillary tangles in a subset of these cortical neurons by local injection of preformed synthetic tau fibrils. By using chronic in vivo two-photon calcium imaging in awake mice, we were able for the first time to follow the activity of individual tangle-bearing neurons and compare it to the activity of tangle-free neurons over the disease course. Our results revealed strong reduction of calcium transient frequency in layer 2/3 cortical neurons of P301S mice, independent of neurofibrillary tangle presence. These results clearly point to the impairing role of soluble, mutated tau protein species present in the majority of the neurons investigated in this study.
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Affiliation(s)
- Petar Marinković
- Department for Translational Brain Research, German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE), Munich, Germany.,Munich Cluster of Systems Neurology (SyNergy), Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, Munich, Germany.,Center for Neuropathology and Prion Research, Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, Munich, Germany
| | - Sonja Blumenstock
- Department for Translational Brain Research, German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE), Munich, Germany.,Munich Cluster of Systems Neurology (SyNergy), Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, Munich, Germany.,Center for Neuropathology and Prion Research, Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, Munich, Germany
| | | | - Viktoria Korzhova
- Department for Translational Brain Research, German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE), Munich, Germany.,Munich Cluster of Systems Neurology (SyNergy), Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, Munich, Germany
| | - Finn Peters
- Department for Translational Brain Research, German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE), Munich, Germany.,Munich Cluster of Systems Neurology (SyNergy), Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, Munich, Germany.,Center for Neuropathology and Prion Research, Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, Munich, Germany
| | - Andreas Knebl
- Department for Translational Brain Research, German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE), Munich, Germany.,Center for Neuropathology and Prion Research, Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, Munich, Germany
| | - Jochen Herms
- Department for Translational Brain Research, German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE), Munich, Germany.,Munich Cluster of Systems Neurology (SyNergy), Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, Munich, Germany.,Center for Neuropathology and Prion Research, Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, Munich, Germany
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28
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Lecoq J, Orlova N, Grewe BF. Wide. Fast. Deep: Recent Advances in Multiphoton Microscopy of In Vivo Neuronal Activity. J Neurosci 2019; 39:9042-9052. [PMID: 31578235 PMCID: PMC6855689 DOI: 10.1523/jneurosci.1527-18.2019] [Citation(s) in RCA: 60] [Impact Index Per Article: 12.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/02/2019] [Revised: 09/27/2019] [Accepted: 09/27/2019] [Indexed: 01/04/2023] Open
Abstract
Multiphoton microscopy (MPM) has emerged as one of the most powerful and widespread technologies to monitor the activity of neuronal networks in awake, behaving animals over long periods of time. MPM development spanned across decades and crucially depended on the concurrent improvement of calcium indicators that report neuronal activity as well as surgical protocols, head fixation approaches, and innovations in optics and microscopy technology. Here we review the last decade of MPM development and highlight how in vivo imaging has matured and diversified, making it now possible to concurrently monitor thousands of neurons across connected brain areas or, alternatively, small local networks with sampling rates in the kilohertz range. This review includes different laser scanning approaches, such as multibeam technologies as well as recent developments to image deeper into neuronal tissues using new, long-wavelength laser sources. As future development will critically depend on our ability to resolve and discriminate individual neuronal spikes, we will also describe a simple framework that allows performing quantitative comparisons between the reviewed MPM instruments. Finally, we provide our own opinion on how the most recent MPM developments can be leveraged at scale to enable the next generation of discoveries in brain function.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jérôme Lecoq
- Allen Institute for Brain Science, Seattle 98109, Washington,
| | - Natalia Orlova
- Allen Institute for Brain Science, Seattle 98109, Washington
| | - Benjamin F Grewe
- Institute of Neuroinformatics, UZH and ETH Zurich, Zurich 8057, Switzerland
- Department of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology, ETH Zurich, Zurich 8092, Switzerland, and
- Faculty of Sciences, University of Zurich, Zurich 8057, Switzerland
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29
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Kerlin A, Mohar B, Flickinger D, MacLennan BJ, Dean MB, Davis C, Spruston N, Svoboda K. Functional clustering of dendritic activity during decision-making. eLife 2019; 8:46966. [PMID: 31663507 PMCID: PMC6821494 DOI: 10.7554/elife.46966] [Citation(s) in RCA: 73] [Impact Index Per Article: 14.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/18/2019] [Accepted: 09/26/2019] [Indexed: 01/08/2023] Open
Abstract
The active properties of dendrites can support local nonlinear operations, but previous imaging and electrophysiological measurements have produced conflicting views regarding the prevalence and selectivity of local nonlinearities in vivo. We imaged calcium signals in pyramidal cell dendrites in the motor cortex of mice performing a tactile decision task. A custom microscope allowed us to image the soma and up to 300 μm of contiguous dendrite at 15 Hz, while resolving individual spines. New analysis methods were used to estimate the frequency and spatial scales of activity in dendritic branches and spines. The majority of dendritic calcium transients were coincident with global events. However, task-associated calcium signals in dendrites and spines were compartmentalized by dendritic branching and clustered within branches over approximately 10 μm. Diverse behavior-related signals were intermingled and distributed throughout the dendritic arbor, potentially supporting a large learning capacity in individual neurons.
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Affiliation(s)
- Aaron Kerlin
- Janelia Research Campus, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Ashburn, United States
| | - Boaz Mohar
- Janelia Research Campus, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Ashburn, United States
| | - Daniel Flickinger
- Janelia Research Campus, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Ashburn, United States
| | - Bryan J MacLennan
- Janelia Research Campus, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Ashburn, United States
| | - Matthew B Dean
- Janelia Research Campus, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Ashburn, United States
| | - Courtney Davis
- Janelia Research Campus, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Ashburn, United States
| | - Nelson Spruston
- Janelia Research Campus, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Ashburn, United States
| | - Karel Svoboda
- Janelia Research Campus, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Ashburn, United States
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30
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Díaz-García CM, Lahmann C, Martínez-François JR, Li B, Koveal D, Nathwani N, Rahman M, Keller JP, Marvin JS, Looger LL, Yellen G. Quantitative in vivo imaging of neuronal glucose concentrations with a genetically encoded fluorescence lifetime sensor. J Neurosci Res 2019; 97:946-960. [PMID: 31106909 PMCID: PMC6565483 DOI: 10.1002/jnr.24433] [Citation(s) in RCA: 46] [Impact Index Per Article: 9.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/24/2019] [Revised: 04/08/2019] [Accepted: 04/08/2019] [Indexed: 01/07/2023]
Abstract
Glucose is an essential source of energy for the brain. Recently, the development of genetically encoded fluorescent biosensors has allowed real time visualization of glucose dynamics from individual neurons and astrocytes. A major difficulty for this approach, even for ratiometric sensors, is the lack of a practical method to convert such measurements into actual concentrations in ex vivo brain tissue or in vivo. Fluorescence lifetime imaging provides a strategy to overcome this. In a previous study, we reported the lifetime glucose sensor iGlucoSnFR-TS (then called SweetieTS) for monitoring changes in neuronal glucose levels in response to stimulation. This genetically encoded sensor was generated by combining the Thermus thermophilus glucose-binding protein with a circularly permuted variant of the monomeric fluorescent protein T-Sapphire. Here, we provide more details on iGlucoSnFR-TS design and characterization, as well as pH and temperature sensitivities. For accurate estimation of glucose concentrations, the sensor must be calibrated at the same temperature as the experiments. We find that when the extracellular glucose concentration is in the range 2-10 mM, the intracellular glucose concentration in hippocampal neurons from acute brain slices is ~20% of the nominal external glucose concentration (~0.4-2 mM). We also measured the cytosolic neuronal glucose concentration in vivo, finding a range of ~0.7-2.5 mM in cortical neurons from awake mice.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Carolina Lahmann
- Department of Neurobiology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
| | | | - Binsen Li
- Department of Neurobiology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Dorothy Koveal
- Department of Neurobiology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Nidhi Nathwani
- Department of Neurobiology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Mahia Rahman
- Department of Neurobiology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Jacob P. Keller
- Janelia Research Campus, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Ashburn, VA, USA
| | - Jonathan S. Marvin
- Janelia Research Campus, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Ashburn, VA, USA
| | - Loren L. Looger
- Janelia Research Campus, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Ashburn, VA, USA
| | - Gary Yellen
- Department of Neurobiology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
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31
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Havenith MN, Zijderveld PM, van Heukelum S, Abghari S, Tiesinga P, Glennon JC. The Virtual-Environment-Foraging Task enables rapid training and single-trial metrics of rule acquisition and reversal in head-fixed mice. Sci Rep 2019; 9:4790. [PMID: 30886236 PMCID: PMC6423024 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-019-41250-w] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/01/2018] [Accepted: 02/27/2019] [Indexed: 01/02/2023] Open
Abstract
Behavioural flexibility is an essential survival skill, yet our understanding of its neuronal substrates is still limited. While mouse research offers unique tools to dissect the neuronal circuits involved, the measurement of flexible behaviour in mice often suffers from long training times, poor experimental control, and temporally imprecise binary (hit/miss) performance readouts. Here we present a virtual-environment task for mice that tackles these limitations. It offers fast training of vision-based rule reversals (~100 trials per reversal) with full stimulus control and continuous behavioural readouts. By generating multiple non-binary performance metrics per trial, it provides single-trial estimates not only of response accuracy and speed, but also of underlying processes like choice certainty and alertness (discussed in detail in a companion paper). Based on these metrics, we show that mice can predict new task rules long before they are able to execute them, and that this delay varies across animals. We also provide and validate single-trial estimates of whether an error was committed with or without awareness of the task rule. By tracking in unprecedented detail the cognitive dynamics underlying flexible behaviour, this task enables new investigations into the neuronal interactions that shape behavioural flexibility moment by moment.
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Affiliation(s)
- Martha N Havenith
- Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Kapittelweg, 29 6525EN, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
| | - Peter M Zijderveld
- Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Kapittelweg, 29 6525EN, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
| | - Sabrina van Heukelum
- Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Kapittelweg, 29 6525EN, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
| | - Shaghayegh Abghari
- Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Kapittelweg, 29 6525EN, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
| | - Paul Tiesinga
- Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Kapittelweg, 29 6525EN, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
| | - Jeffrey C Glennon
- Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Kapittelweg, 29 6525EN, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
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32
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Abstract
Genetically encoded calcium indicators (GECIs) have become widely used for Ca2+ imaging in cultured cells as well as in living organisms. Transduction of microglia with viral vectors encoding GECIs provides a convenient means to label microglia for in vivo Ca2+ imaging. We describe a method using microglia-specific microRNA-9-regulated viral vector, to label microglial cells with a ratiometric GECI (Twitch-2B). This method enables longitudinal recording of both transient and sustained elevations of Ca2+ in microglia in live animals.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yajie Liang
- Department of Neurophysiology, Institute of Physiology, Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany
| | - Olga Garaschuk
- Department of Neurophysiology, Institute of Physiology, Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany.
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33
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Havenith MN, Zijderveld PM, van Heukelum S, Abghari S, Glennon JC, Tiesinga P. The Virtual-Environment-Foraging Task enables rapid training and single-trial metrics of attention in head-fixed mice. Sci Rep 2018; 8:17371. [PMID: 30478333 PMCID: PMC6255915 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-018-34966-8] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/19/2016] [Accepted: 10/25/2018] [Indexed: 01/12/2023] Open
Abstract
Attention - the flexible allocation of processing resources based on behavioural demands - is essential to survival. Mouse research offers unique tools to dissect the underlying pathways, but is hampered by the difficulty of accurately measuring attention in mice. Current attention tasks for mice face several limitations: Binary (hit/miss), temporally imprecise metrics, behavioural confounds and overtraining. Thus, despite the increasing scope of neuronal population measurements, insights are limited without equally precise behavioural measures. Here we present a virtual-environment task for head-fixed mice based on 'foraging-like' navigation. The task requires animals to discriminate gratings at orientation differences from 90° to 5°, and can be learned in only 3-5 sessions (<550 trials). It yields single-trial, non-binary metrics of response speed and accuracy, which generate secondary metrics of choice certainty, visual acuity, and most importantly, of sustained and cued attention - two attentional components studied extensively in humans. This allows us to examine single-trial dynamics of attention in mice, independently of confounds like rule learning. With this approach, we show that C57/BL6 mice have better visual acuity than previously measured, that they rhythmically alternate between states of high and low alertness, and that they can be prompted to adopt different performance strategies using minute changes in reward contingencies.
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Affiliation(s)
- Martha N Havenith
- Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Kapittelweg, 29 6525EN, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
| | - Peter M Zijderveld
- Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Kapittelweg, 29 6525EN, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
| | - Sabrina van Heukelum
- Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Kapittelweg, 29 6525EN, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
| | - Shaghayegh Abghari
- Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Kapittelweg, 29 6525EN, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
| | - Jeffrey C Glennon
- Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Kapittelweg, 29 6525EN, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
| | - Paul Tiesinga
- Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Kapittelweg, 29 6525EN, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
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34
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Visual Evidence Accumulation Guides Decision-Making in Unrestrained Mice. J Neurosci 2018; 38:10143-10155. [PMID: 30322902 DOI: 10.1523/jneurosci.3478-17.2018] [Citation(s) in RCA: 44] [Impact Index Per Article: 7.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/05/2017] [Revised: 09/18/2018] [Accepted: 09/22/2018] [Indexed: 12/13/2022] Open
Abstract
The ability to manipulate neural activity with precision is an asset in uncovering neural circuits for decision-making. Diverse tools for manipulating neurons are available for mice, but their feasibility remains unclear, especially when decisions require accumulating visual evidence. For example, whether mice' decisions reflect leaky accumulation is unknown, as are the relevant/irrelevant factors that influence decisions. Further, causal circuits for visual evidence accumulation are poorly understood. To address this, we measured decisions in mice judging the fluctuating rate of a flash sequence. An initial analysis (>500,000 trials, 29 male and female mice) demonstrated that information throughout the 1000 ms trial influenced choice, with early information most influential. This suggests that information persists in neural circuits for ∼1000 ms with minimal accumulation leak. Next, in a subset of animals, we probed strategy more extensively and found that although animals were influenced by stimulus rate, they were unable to entirely suppress the influence of stimulus brightness. Finally, we identified anteromedial (AM) visual area via retinotopic mapping and optogenetically inhibited it using JAWS. Light activation biased choices in both injected and uninjected animals, demonstrating that light alone influences behavior. By varying stimulus-response contingency while holding stimulated hemisphere constant, we surmounted this obstacle to demonstrate that AM suppression biases decisions. By leveraging a large dataset to quantitatively characterize decision-making behavior, we establish mice as suitable for neural circuit manipulation studies. Further, by demonstrating that mice accumulate visual evidence, we demonstrate that this strategy for reducing uncertainty in decision-making is used by animals with diverse visual systems.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT To connect behaviors to their underlying neural mechanism, a deep understanding of behavioral strategy is needed. This understanding is incomplete for mice. To surmount this, we measured the outcome of >500,000 decisions made by 29 mice trained to judge visual stimuli and performed behavioral/optogenetic manipulations in smaller subsets. Our analyses offer new insights into mice' decision-making strategies and compares them with those of other species. We then disrupted neural activity in a candidate neural structure and examined the effect on decisions. Our findings establish mice as suitable for visual accumulation of evidence decisions. Further, the results highlight similarities in decision-making strategies across very different species.
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35
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Goltstein PM, Meijer GT, Pennartz CM. Conditioning sharpens the spatial representation of rewarded stimuli in mouse primary visual cortex. eLife 2018; 7:37683. [PMID: 30222107 PMCID: PMC6141231 DOI: 10.7554/elife.37683] [Citation(s) in RCA: 19] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/18/2018] [Accepted: 08/29/2018] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
Reward is often employed as reinforcement in behavioral paradigms but it is unclear how the visuospatial aspect of a stimulus-reward association affects the cortical representation of visual space. Using a head-fixed paradigm, we conditioned mice to associate the same visual pattern in adjacent retinotopic regions with availability and absence of reward. Time-lapse intrinsic optical signal imaging under anesthesia showed that conditioning increased the spatial separation of mesoscale cortical representations of reward predicting- and non-reward predicting stimuli. Subsequent in vivo two-photon calcium imaging revealed that this improved separation correlated with enhanced population coding for retinotopic location, specifically for the trained orientation and spatially confined to the V1 region where rewarded and non-rewarded stimulus representations bordered. These results are corroborated by conditioning-induced differences in the correlation structure of population activity. Thus, the cortical representation of visual space is sharpened as consequence of associative stimulus-reward learning while the overall retinotopic map remains unaltered.
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Affiliation(s)
- Pieter M Goltstein
- Center for Neuroscience, Swammerdam Institute for Life Sciences, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands.,Research Priority Program Brain and Cognition, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands
| | - Guido T Meijer
- Center for Neuroscience, Swammerdam Institute for Life Sciences, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands.,Research Priority Program Brain and Cognition, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands
| | - Cyriel Ma Pennartz
- Center for Neuroscience, Swammerdam Institute for Life Sciences, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands.,Research Priority Program Brain and Cognition, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands
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36
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Automatic Cell Segmentation by Adaptive Thresholding (ACSAT) for Large-Scale Calcium Imaging Datasets. eNeuro 2018; 5:eN-MNT-0056-18. [PMID: 30221189 PMCID: PMC6135987 DOI: 10.1523/eneuro.0056-18.2018] [Citation(s) in RCA: 13] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/03/2018] [Revised: 08/16/2018] [Accepted: 08/23/2018] [Indexed: 02/04/2023] Open
Abstract
Advances in calcium imaging have made it possible to record from an increasingly larger number of neurons simultaneously. Neuroscientists can now routinely image hundreds to thousands of individual neurons. An emerging technical challenge that parallels the advancement in imaging a large number of individual neurons is the processing of correspondingly large datasets. One important step is the identification of individual neurons. Traditional methods rely mainly on manual or semimanual inspection, which cannot be scaled for processing large datasets. To address this challenge, we focused on developing an automated segmentation method, which we refer to as automated cell segmentation by adaptive thresholding (ACSAT). ACSAT works with a time-collapsed image and includes an iterative procedure that automatically calculates global and local threshold values during successive iterations based on the distribution of image pixel intensities. Thus, the algorithm is capable of handling variations in morphological details and in fluorescence intensities in different calcium imaging datasets. In this paper, we demonstrate the utility of ACSAT by testing it on 500 simulated datasets, two wide-field hippocampus datasets, a wide-field striatum dataset, a wide-field cell culture dataset, and a two-photon hippocampus dataset. For the simulated datasets with truth, ACSAT achieved >80% recall and precision when the signal-to-noise ratio was no less than ∼24 dB.
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37
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Goltstein PM, Reinert S, Glas A, Bonhoeffer T, Hübener M. Food and water restriction lead to differential learning behaviors in a head-fixed two-choice visual discrimination task for mice. PLoS One 2018; 13:e0204066. [PMID: 30212542 PMCID: PMC6136814 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0204066] [Citation(s) in RCA: 31] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/24/2018] [Accepted: 08/31/2018] [Indexed: 12/11/2022] Open
Abstract
Head-fixed behavioral tasks can provide important insights into cognitive processes in rodents. Despite the widespread use of this experimental approach, there is only limited knowledge of how differences in task parameters, such as motivational incentives, affect overall task performance. Here, we provide a detailed methodological description of the setup and procedures for training mice efficiently on a two-choice lick left/lick right visual discrimination task. We characterize the effects of two distinct restriction regimens, i.e. food and water restriction, on animal wellbeing, activity patterns, task acquisition, and performance. While we observed reduced behavioral activity during the period of food and water restriction, the average animal discomfort scores remained in the 'sub-threshold' and 'mild' categories throughout the experiment, irrespective of the restriction regimen. We found that the type of restriction significantly influenced specific aspects of task acquisition and engagement, i.e. the number of sessions until the learning criterion was reached and the number of trials performed per session, but it did not affect maximum learning curve performance. These results indicate that the choice of restriction paradigm does not strongly affect animal wellbeing, but it can have a significant effect on how mice perform in a task.
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Affiliation(s)
- Pieter M. Goltstein
- Max Planck Institute of Neurobiology, Martinsried, Germany
- * E-mail: (PG); (MH)
| | - Sandra Reinert
- Max Planck Institute of Neurobiology, Martinsried, Germany
- Graduate School of Systemic Neurosciences, Martinsried, Germany
| | - Annet Glas
- Max Planck Institute of Neurobiology, Martinsried, Germany
- Graduate School of Systemic Neurosciences, Martinsried, Germany
| | | | - Mark Hübener
- Max Planck Institute of Neurobiology, Martinsried, Germany
- * E-mail: (PG); (MH)
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38
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Pho GN, Goard MJ, Woodson J, Crawford B, Sur M. Task-dependent representations of stimulus and choice in mouse parietal cortex. Nat Commun 2018; 9:2596. [PMID: 29968709 PMCID: PMC6030204 DOI: 10.1038/s41467-018-05012-y] [Citation(s) in RCA: 69] [Impact Index Per Article: 11.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/22/2017] [Accepted: 06/11/2018] [Indexed: 12/22/2022] Open
Abstract
The posterior parietal cortex (PPC) has been implicated in perceptual decisions, but whether its role is specific to sensory processing or sensorimotor transformation is not well understood. Here, we trained mice to perform a go/no-go visual discrimination task and imaged the activity of neurons in primary visual cortex (V1) and PPC during engaged behavior and passive viewing. Unlike V1 neurons, which respond robustly to stimuli in both conditions, most PPC neurons respond exclusively during task engagement. To test whether signals in PPC primarily encoded the stimulus or the animal's impending choice, we image the same neurons before and after re-training mice with a reversed sensorimotor contingency. Unlike V1 neurons, most PPC neurons reflect the animal's choice of the new target stimulus after re-training. Mouse PPC is therefore strongly task-dependent, reflects choice more than stimulus, and may play a role in the transformation of visual inputs into motor commands.
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Affiliation(s)
- Gerald N Pho
- Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, 02139, USA.,Picower Institute for Learning and Memory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, 02139, USA.,Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, 02138, USA
| | - Michael J Goard
- Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, 02139, USA.,Picower Institute for Learning and Memory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, 02139, USA.,Department of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology, University of California, Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA, 93106, USA.,Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences, University of California, Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA, 93106, USA
| | - Jonathan Woodson
- Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, 02139, USA.,Picower Institute for Learning and Memory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, 02139, USA
| | - Benjamin Crawford
- Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, 02139, USA.,Picower Institute for Learning and Memory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, 02139, USA
| | - Mriganka Sur
- Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, 02139, USA. .,Picower Institute for Learning and Memory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, 02139, USA.
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39
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Zhu L, Lee CR, Margolis DJ, Najafizadeh L. Decoding cortical brain states from widefield calcium imaging data using visibility graph. BIOMEDICAL OPTICS EXPRESS 2018; 9:3017-3036. [PMID: 29984080 PMCID: PMC6033549 DOI: 10.1364/boe.9.003017] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/25/2018] [Revised: 05/12/2018] [Accepted: 05/12/2018] [Indexed: 06/08/2023]
Abstract
Widefield optical imaging of neuronal populations over large portions of the cerebral cortex in awake behaving animals provides a unique opportunity for investigating the relationship between brain function and behavior. In this paper, we demonstrate that the temporal characteristics of calcium dynamics obtained through widefield imaging can be utilized to infer the corresponding behavior. Cortical activity in transgenic calcium reporter mice (n=6) expressing GCaMP6f in neocortical pyramidal neurons is recorded during active whisking (AW) and no whisking (NW). To extract features related to the temporal characteristics of calcium recordings, a method based on visibility graph (VG) is introduced. An extensive study considering different choices of features and classifiers is conducted to find the best model capable of predicting AW and NW from calcium recordings. Our experimental results show that temporal characteristics of calcium recordings identified by the proposed method carry discriminatory information that are powerful enough for decoding behavior.
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Affiliation(s)
- Li Zhu
- Integrated Systems and NeuroImaging Laboratory, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Rutgers University, Piscataway, NJ, USA
| | - Christian R Lee
- Department of Cell Biology and Neuroscience, Rutgers University, Piscataway, NJ, USA
| | - David J Margolis
- Department of Cell Biology and Neuroscience, Rutgers University, Piscataway, NJ, USA
- Equal contribution
| | - Laleh Najafizadeh
- Integrated Systems and NeuroImaging Laboratory, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Rutgers University, Piscataway, NJ, USA
- Equal contribution
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40
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Fang WQ, Yuste R. Overproduction of Neurons Is Correlated with Enhanced Cortical Ensembles and Increased Perceptual Discrimination. Cell Rep 2018; 21:381-392. [PMID: 29020625 DOI: 10.1016/j.celrep.2017.09.040] [Citation(s) in RCA: 18] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/28/2017] [Revised: 09/02/2017] [Accepted: 09/11/2017] [Indexed: 01/25/2023] Open
Abstract
Brains vary greatly in neuronal number and density, even across individuals within the same species, yet it remains unclear whether such variation leads to differences in brain function or behavior. By imaging cortical activity of a mouse model in which neuronal production is moderately enhanced in utero, we find that animals with more cortical neurons also develop enhanced functional correlations and more distinct neuronal ensembles in primary visual cortex. These mice also have sharper orientation discrimination in their visual behavior. These results unveil a correlation between neuronal ensembles and behavior and suggest that neuronal number is linked to functional modularity and perceptual discrimination of visual cortex. By experimentally linking differences in neuronal number and behavior, our findings could help explain how evolutionary and developmental variability of individual and species brain size may lead to perceptual and cognitive differences.
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Affiliation(s)
- Wei-Qun Fang
- Neurotechnology Center, Department of Biological Sciences, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027, USA.
| | - Rafael Yuste
- Neurotechnology Center, Department of Biological Sciences, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027, USA
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41
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Kirkels LAMH, Zhang W, Havenith MN, Tiesinga P, Glennon J, van Wezel RJA, Duijnhouwer J. The opto-locomotor reflex as a tool to measure sensitivity to moving random dot patterns in mice. Sci Rep 2018; 8:7710. [PMID: 29769564 PMCID: PMC5955912 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-018-25844-4] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/14/2017] [Accepted: 04/24/2018] [Indexed: 01/17/2023] Open
Abstract
We designed a method to quantify mice visual function by measuring reflexive opto-locomotor responses. Mice were placed on a Styrofoam ball at the center of a large dome on the inside of which we projected moving random dot patterns. Because we fixed the heads of the mice in space and the ball was floating on pressurized air, locomotion of the mice was translated to rotation of the ball, which we registered. Sudden onsets of rightward or leftward moving patterns caused the mice to reflexively change their running direction. We quantified the opto-locomotor responses to different pattern speeds, luminance contrasts, and dot sizes. We show that the method is fast and reliable and the magnitude of the reflex is stable within sessions. We conclude that this opto-locomotor reflex method is suitable to quantify visual function in mice.
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Affiliation(s)
- L A M H Kirkels
- Department of Biophysics, Donders Institute, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
| | - W Zhang
- Department of Biophysics, Donders Institute, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
| | - M N Havenith
- Department of Neuroinformatics, Donders Institute, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.,Department of Cognitive Neuroscience, Donders Institute, RadboudUMC, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
| | - P Tiesinga
- Department of Neuroinformatics, Donders Institute, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
| | - J Glennon
- Department of Cognitive Neuroscience, Donders Institute, RadboudUMC, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
| | - R J A van Wezel
- Department of Biophysics, Donders Institute, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.,Biomedical Signals and Systems, MIRA, Twente University, Enschede, The Netherlands
| | - J Duijnhouwer
- Department of Biophysics, Donders Institute, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.,Center for Molecular and Behavioral Neuroscience, Rutgers University, Newark, USA
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42
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Reinagel P. Training Rats Using Water Rewards Without Water Restriction. Front Behav Neurosci 2018; 12:84. [PMID: 29773982 PMCID: PMC5943498 DOI: 10.3389/fnbeh.2018.00084] [Citation(s) in RCA: 17] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/10/2018] [Accepted: 04/17/2018] [Indexed: 11/22/2022] Open
Abstract
High-throughput behavioral training of rodents has been a transformative development for systems neuroscience. Water or food restriction is typically required to motivate task engagement. We hypothesized a gap between physiological water need and hedonic water satiety that could be leveraged to train rats for water rewards without water restriction. We show that when Citric Acid (CA) is added to water, female rats drink less, yet consume enough to maintain long term health. With 24 h/day access to a visual task with water rewards, rats with ad lib CA water performed 84% ± 18% as many trials as in the same task under water restriction. In 2-h daily sessions, rats with ad lib CA water performed 68% ± 13% as many trials as under water restriction. Using reward sizes <25 μl, rats with ad lib CA performed 804 ± 285 trials/day in live-in sessions or 364 ± 82 trials/day in limited duration daily sessions. The safety of CA water amendment was previously shown for male rats, and the gap between water need and satiety was similar to what we observed in females. Therefore, it is likely that this method will generalize to male rats, though this remains to be shown. We conclude that at least in some contexts rats can be trained using water rewards without water restriction, benefitting both animal welfare and scientific productivity.
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Affiliation(s)
- Pamela Reinagel
- Section of Neurobiology, Division of Biological Sciences, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, United States
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43
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Pakan JM, Francioni V, Rochefort NL. Action and learning shape the activity of neuronal circuits in the visual cortex. Curr Opin Neurobiol 2018; 52:88-97. [PMID: 29727859 PMCID: PMC6562203 DOI: 10.1016/j.conb.2018.04.020] [Citation(s) in RCA: 47] [Impact Index Per Article: 7.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/02/2018] [Accepted: 04/13/2018] [Indexed: 11/25/2022]
Abstract
Arousal and locomotion modulate neuronal activity in primary visual cortex. Neurons in primary visual cortex respond to visuomotor mismatch. Experience shapes neuronal responses to familiar stimuli, reward and object location. Neuronal representations of visual stimuli are modulated according to the behavioural relevance of the stimuli. Neuromodulatory, top-down and thalamocortical inputs convey arousal-related and motor-related signals to primary visual cortex.
Nonsensory variables strongly influence neuronal activity in the adult mouse primary visual cortex. Neuronal responses to visual stimuli are modulated by behavioural state, such as arousal and motor activity, and are shaped by experience. This dynamic process leads to neural representations in the visual cortex that reflect stimulus familiarity, expectations of reward and object location, and mismatch between self-motion and visual-flow. The recent development of genetic tools and recording techniques in awake behaving mice has enabled the investigation of the circuit mechanisms underlying state-dependent and experience-dependent neuronal representations in primary visual cortex. These neuronal circuits involve neuromodulatory, top-down cortico-cortical and thalamocortical pathways. The functions of nonsensory signals at this early stage of visual information processing are now beginning to be unravelled.
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Affiliation(s)
- Janelle Mp Pakan
- Center for Behavioral Brain Sciences, Institute of Cognitive Neurology and Dementia Research, Otto-von-Guericke University, Magdeburg, Germany; German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases, Magdeburg, Germany
| | - Valerio Francioni
- Centre for Discovery Brain Sciences, School of Biomedical Sciences, Edinburgh, United Kingdom
| | - Nathalie L Rochefort
- Centre for Discovery Brain Sciences, School of Biomedical Sciences, Edinburgh, United Kingdom; Simons Initiative for the Developing Brain, Edinburgh, United Kingdom.
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44
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Li R, Wang M, Yao J, Liang S, Liao X, Yang M, Zhang J, Yan J, Jia H, Chen X, Li X. Two-Photon Functional Imaging of the Auditory Cortex in Behaving Mice: From Neural Networks to Single Spines. Front Neural Circuits 2018; 12:33. [PMID: 29740289 PMCID: PMC5928246 DOI: 10.3389/fncir.2018.00033] [Citation(s) in RCA: 12] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/23/2017] [Accepted: 04/10/2018] [Indexed: 11/17/2022] Open
Abstract
In vivo two-photon Ca2+ imaging is a powerful tool for recording neuronal activities during perceptual tasks and has been increasingly applied to behaving animals for acute or chronic experiments. However, the auditory cortex is not easily accessible to imaging because of the abundant temporal muscles, arteries around the ears and their lateral locations. Here, we report a protocol for two-photon Ca2+ imaging in the auditory cortex of head-fixed behaving mice. By using a custom-made head fixation apparatus and a head-rotated fixation procedure, we achieved two-photon imaging and in combination with targeted cell-attached recordings of auditory cortical neurons in behaving mice. Using synthetic Ca2+ indicators, we recorded the Ca2+ transients at multiple scales, including neuronal populations, single neurons, dendrites and single spines, in auditory cortex during behavior. Furthermore, using genetically encoded Ca2+ indicators (GECIs), we monitored the neuronal dynamics over days throughout the process of associative learning. Therefore, we achieved two-photon functional imaging at multiple scales in auditory cortex of behaving mice, which extends the tool box for investigating the neural basis of audition-related behaviors.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ruijie Li
- Brain Research Center, Third Military Medical University, Chongqing, China
| | - Meng Wang
- Brain Research Center, Third Military Medical University, Chongqing, China
| | - Jiwei Yao
- Department of Urology, Institute of Urinary Surgery, Southwest Hospital, Third Military Medical University, Chongqing, China
| | - Shanshan Liang
- Brain Research Center, Third Military Medical University, Chongqing, China
| | - Xiang Liao
- Brain Research Center, Third Military Medical University, Chongqing, China
| | - Mengke Yang
- Brain Research Instrument Innovation Center, Suzhou Institute of Biomedical Engineering and Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Suzhou, Jiangsu, China
| | - Jianxiong Zhang
- Brain Research Center, Third Military Medical University, Chongqing, China
| | - Junan Yan
- Department of Urology, Institute of Urinary Surgery, Southwest Hospital, Third Military Medical University, Chongqing, China
| | - Hongbo Jia
- Brain Research Instrument Innovation Center, Suzhou Institute of Biomedical Engineering and Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Suzhou, Jiangsu, China
| | - Xiaowei Chen
- Brain Research Center, Third Military Medical University, Chongqing, China.,CAS Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology, Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, China
| | - Xingyi Li
- Brain Research Center, Third Military Medical University, Chongqing, China
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45
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Rodríguez C, Liang Y, Lu R, Ji N. Three-photon fluorescence microscopy with an axially elongated Bessel focus. OPTICS LETTERS 2018; 43:1914-1917. [PMID: 29652397 PMCID: PMC5986555 DOI: 10.1364/ol.43.001914] [Citation(s) in RCA: 30] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 05/05/2023]
Abstract
Volumetric imaging tools that are simple to adopt, flexible, and robust are in high demand in the field of neuroscience, where the ability to image neurons and their networks with high spatiotemporal resolution is essential. Using an axially elongated focus approximating a Bessel beam, in combination with two-photon fluorescence microscopy, has proven successful at such an endeavor. Here, we demonstrate three-photon fluorescence imaging with an axially extended Bessel focus. We use an axicon-based module that allowed for the generation of Bessel foci of varying numerical apertures and axial lengths, and apply this volumetric imaging tool to image mouse brain slices and for in vivo imaging of the mouse brain.
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Affiliation(s)
- Cristina Rodríguez
- Janelia Research Campus, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Ashburn, Virginia 20147, USA
| | - Yajie Liang
- Janelia Research Campus, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Ashburn, Virginia 20147, USA
| | - Rongwen Lu
- Janelia Research Campus, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Ashburn, Virginia 20147, USA
| | - Na Ji
- Janelia Research Campus, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Ashburn, Virginia 20147, USA
- Department of Physics, Department of Molecular & Cellular Biology, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720, USA
- Corresponding author:
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46
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Ranson A. Stability and Plasticity of Contextual Modulation in the Mouse Visual Cortex. Cell Rep 2017; 18:840-848. [PMID: 28122235 PMCID: PMC5289925 DOI: 10.1016/j.celrep.2016.12.080] [Citation(s) in RCA: 16] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/18/2016] [Revised: 11/08/2016] [Accepted: 12/22/2016] [Indexed: 02/04/2023] Open
Abstract
Activity of neurons in primary visual cortex is shaped by sensory and behavioral context. However, the long-term stability of the influence of contextual factors in the mature cortex remains poorly understood. To investigate this, we used two-photon calcium imaging to track the influence of surround suppression and locomotion on individual neurons over 14 days. We found that highly active excitatory neurons and parvalbumin-positive (PV+) interneurons exhibited relatively stable modulation by visual context. Similarly, most neurons exhibited a stable yet distinct degree of modulation by locomotion. In contrast, less active excitatory neurons exhibited plasticity in visual context influence, resulting in increased suppression. These findings suggest that the mature visual cortex possesses stable subnetworks of neurons, differentiated by cell type and activity level, which have distinctive and stable interactions with sensory and behavioral contexts, as well as other less active and more labile neurons, which are sensitive to visual experience. Highly active excitatory neurons are stably modulated by visual context Lower activity neurons exhibit plasticity of influence of visual context in mature V1 PV interneurons maintain relatively stable modulation by visual and behavioral context Majority of excitatory neurons are stably modulated by behavioral context
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Affiliation(s)
- Adam Ranson
- Neuroscience and Mental Health Research Institute, Cardiff University, Cardiff, CF24 4HQ, UK.
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47
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Clopath C, Bonhoeffer T, Hübener M, Rose T. Variance and invariance of neuronal long-term representations. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci 2017; 372:rstb.2016.0161. [PMID: 28093555 PMCID: PMC5247593 DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2016.0161] [Citation(s) in RCA: 67] [Impact Index Per Article: 9.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 10/01/2016] [Indexed: 12/13/2022] Open
Abstract
The brain extracts behaviourally relevant sensory input to produce appropriate motor output. On the one hand, our constantly changing environment requires this transformation to be plastic. On the other hand, plasticity is thought to be balanced by mechanisms ensuring constancy of neuronal representations in order to achieve stable behavioural performance. Yet, prominent changes in synaptic strength and connectivity also occur during normal sensory experience, indicating a certain degree of constitutive plasticity. This raises the question of how stable neuronal representations are on the population level and also on the single neuron level. Here, we review recent data from longitudinal electrophysiological and optical recordings of single-cell activity that assess the long-term stability of neuronal stimulus selectivities under conditions of constant sensory experience, during learning, and after reversible modification of sensory input. The emerging picture is that neuronal representations are stabilized by behavioural relevance and that the degree of long-term tuning stability and perturbation resistance directly relates to the functional role of the respective neurons, cell types and circuits. Using a 'toy' model, we show that stable baseline representations and precise recovery from perturbations in visual cortex could arise from a 'backbone' of strong recurrent connectivity between similarly tuned cells together with a small number of 'anchor' neurons exempt from plastic changes.This article is part of the themed issue 'Integrating Hebbian and homeostatic plasticity'.
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Affiliation(s)
- Claudia Clopath
- Bioengineering Department, Imperial College London, South Kensington Campus, London SW7 2AZ, UK
| | - Tobias Bonhoeffer
- Max Planck Institute of Neurobiology, Am Klopferspitz 18, 82152 Martinsried, Germany
| | - Mark Hübener
- Max Planck Institute of Neurobiology, Am Klopferspitz 18, 82152 Martinsried, Germany
| | - Tobias Rose
- Max Planck Institute of Neurobiology, Am Klopferspitz 18, 82152 Martinsried, Germany
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48
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Burgess CP, Lak A, Steinmetz NA, Zatka-Haas P, Bai Reddy C, Jacobs EAK, Linden JF, Paton JJ, Ranson A, Schröder S, Soares S, Wells MJ, Wool LE, Harris KD, Carandini M. High-Yield Methods for Accurate Two-Alternative Visual Psychophysics in Head-Fixed Mice. Cell Rep 2017; 20:2513-2524. [PMID: 28877482 PMCID: PMC5603732 DOI: 10.1016/j.celrep.2017.08.047] [Citation(s) in RCA: 94] [Impact Index Per Article: 13.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/16/2016] [Revised: 06/08/2017] [Accepted: 08/14/2017] [Indexed: 01/06/2023] Open
Abstract
Research in neuroscience increasingly relies on the mouse, a mammalian species that affords unparalleled genetic tractability and brain atlases. Here, we introduce high-yield methods for probing mouse visual decisions. Mice are head-fixed, facilitating repeatable visual stimulation, eye tracking, and brain access. They turn a steering wheel to make two alternative choices, forced or unforced. Learning is rapid thanks to intuitive coupling of stimuli to wheel position. The mouse decisions deliver high-quality psychometric curves for detection and discrimination and conform to the predictions of a simple probabilistic observer model. The task is readily paired with two-photon imaging of cortical activity. Optogenetic inactivation reveals that the task requires mice to use their visual cortex. Mice are motivated to perform the task by fluid reward or optogenetic stimulation of dopamine neurons. This stimulation elicits a larger number of trials and faster learning. These methods provide a platform to accurately probe mouse vision and its neural basis.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Armin Lak
- UCL Institute of Ophthalmology, University College London, London WC1E 6BT, UK
| | | | - Peter Zatka-Haas
- UCL Institute of Neurology, University College London, London WC1E 6BT, UK; Centre for Mathematics and Physics in the Life Sciences and Experimental Biology (CoMPLEX), University College London, London, UK
| | - Charu Bai Reddy
- UCL Institute of Ophthalmology, University College London, London WC1E 6BT, UK
| | - Elina A K Jacobs
- UCL Institute of Neurology, University College London, London WC1E 6BT, UK
| | | | | | - Adam Ranson
- UCL Institute of Ophthalmology, University College London, London WC1E 6BT, UK
| | - Sylvia Schröder
- UCL Institute of Ophthalmology, University College London, London WC1E 6BT, UK
| | - Sofia Soares
- Champalimaud Centre for the Unknown, Lisbon, Portugal
| | - Miles J Wells
- UCL Institute of Neurology, University College London, London WC1E 6BT, UK
| | - Lauren E Wool
- UCL Institute of Neurology, University College London, London WC1E 6BT, UK
| | - Kenneth D Harris
- UCL Institute of Neurology, University College London, London WC1E 6BT, UK
| | - Matteo Carandini
- UCL Institute of Ophthalmology, University College London, London WC1E 6BT, UK.
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49
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Steinmetz NA, Buetfering C, Lecoq J, Lee CR, Peters AJ, Jacobs EAK, Coen P, Ollerenshaw DR, Valley MT, de Vries SEJ, Garrett M, Zhuang J, Groblewski PA, Manavi S, Miles J, White C, Lee E, Griffin F, Larkin JD, Roll K, Cross S, Nguyen TV, Larsen R, Pendergraft J, Daigle T, Tasic B, Thompson CL, Waters J, Olsen S, Margolis DJ, Zeng H, Hausser M, Carandini M, Harris KD. Aberrant Cortical Activity in Multiple GCaMP6-Expressing Transgenic Mouse Lines. eNeuro 2017; 4:ENEURO.0207-17.2017. [PMID: 28932809 PMCID: PMC5604087 DOI: 10.1523/eneuro.0207-17.2017] [Citation(s) in RCA: 146] [Impact Index Per Article: 20.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/13/2017] [Revised: 08/08/2017] [Accepted: 08/14/2017] [Indexed: 01/05/2023] Open
Abstract
Transgenic mouse lines are invaluable tools for neuroscience but, as with any technique, care must be taken to ensure that the tool itself does not unduly affect the system under study. Here we report aberrant electrical activity, similar to interictal spikes, and accompanying fluorescence events in some genotypes of transgenic mice expressing GCaMP6 genetically encoded calcium sensors. These epileptiform events have been observed particularly, but not exclusively, in mice with Emx1-Cre and Ai93 transgenes, of either sex, across multiple laboratories. The events occur at >0.1 Hz, are very large in amplitude (>1.0 mV local field potentials, >10% df/f widefield imaging signals), and typically cover large regions of cortex. Many properties of neuronal responses and behavior seem normal despite these events, although rare subjects exhibit overt generalized seizures. The underlying mechanisms of this phenomenon remain unclear, but we speculate about possible causes on the basis of diverse observations. We encourage researchers to be aware of these activity patterns while interpreting neuronal recordings from affected mouse lines and when considering which lines to study.
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Affiliation(s)
- Nicholas A. Steinmetz
- UCL Institute of Neurology, University College London, London, UK
- UCL Institute of Ophthalmology, University College London, London, UK
| | - Christina Buetfering
- Department of Neuroscience, Physiology, and Pharmacology, University College London, London, UK
- Wolfson Institute for Biomedical Research, University College London, London, UK
| | | | - Christian R. Lee
- Department of Cell Biology and Neuroscience, Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, Piscataway, NJ
| | - Andrew J. Peters
- UCL Institute of Ophthalmology, University College London, London, UK
| | | | - Philip Coen
- UCL Institute of Neurology, University College London, London, UK
| | | | | | | | | | - Jun Zhuang
- Allen Institute for Brain Science, Seattle, WA
| | | | | | - Jesse Miles
- Allen Institute for Brain Science, Seattle, WA
| | - Casey White
- Allen Institute for Brain Science, Seattle, WA
| | - Eric Lee
- Allen Institute for Brain Science, Seattle, WA
| | | | | | - Kate Roll
- Allen Institute for Brain Science, Seattle, WA
| | - Sissy Cross
- Allen Institute for Brain Science, Seattle, WA
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | - Jack Waters
- Allen Institute for Brain Science, Seattle, WA
| | - Shawn Olsen
- Allen Institute for Brain Science, Seattle, WA
| | - David J. Margolis
- Department of Cell Biology and Neuroscience, Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, Piscataway, NJ
| | | | - Michael Hausser
- Department of Neuroscience, Physiology, and Pharmacology, University College London, London, UK
- Wolfson Institute for Biomedical Research, University College London, London, UK
| | - Matteo Carandini
- UCL Institute of Ophthalmology, University College London, London, UK
| | - Kenneth D. Harris
- UCL Institute of Neurology, University College London, London, UK
- Department of Neuroscience, Physiology, and Pharmacology, University College London, London, UK
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50
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Dynamic Reorganization of Neuronal Activity Patterns in Parietal Cortex. Cell 2017; 170:986-999.e16. [PMID: 28823559 DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2017.07.021] [Citation(s) in RCA: 209] [Impact Index Per Article: 29.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/30/2017] [Revised: 05/28/2017] [Accepted: 07/13/2017] [Indexed: 01/03/2023]
Abstract
Neuronal representations change as associations are learned between sensory stimuli and behavioral actions. However, it is poorly understood whether representations for learned associations stabilize in cortical association areas or continue to change following learning. We tracked the activity of posterior parietal cortex neurons for a month as mice stably performed a virtual-navigation task. The relationship between cells' activity and task features was mostly stable on single days but underwent major reorganization over weeks. The neurons informative about task features (trial type and maze locations) changed across days. Despite changes in individual cells, the population activity had statistically similar properties each day and stable information for over a week. As mice learned additional associations, new activity patterns emerged in the neurons used for existing representations without greatly affecting the rate of change of these representations. We propose that dynamic neuronal activity patterns could balance plasticity for learning and stability for memory.
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