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Shen Y, Shao M, Hao ZZ, Huang M, Xu N, Liu S. Multimodal Nature of the Single-cell Primate Brain Atlas: Morphology, Transcriptome, Electrophysiology, and Connectivity. Neurosci Bull 2024; 40:517-532. [PMID: 38194157 PMCID: PMC11003949 DOI: 10.1007/s12264-023-01160-4] [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: 03/22/2023] [Accepted: 09/23/2023] [Indexed: 01/10/2024] Open
Abstract
Primates exhibit complex brain structures that augment cognitive function. The neocortex fulfills high-cognitive functions through billions of connected neurons. These neurons have distinct transcriptomic, morphological, and electrophysiological properties, and their connectivity principles vary. These features endow the primate brain atlas with a multimodal nature. The recent integration of next-generation sequencing with modified patch-clamp techniques is revolutionizing the way to census the primate neocortex, enabling a multimodal neuronal atlas to be established in great detail: (1) single-cell/single-nucleus RNA-seq technology establishes high-throughput transcriptomic references, covering all major transcriptomic cell types; (2) patch-seq links the morphological and electrophysiological features to the transcriptomic reference; (3) multicell patch-clamp delineates the principles of local connectivity. Here, we review the applications of these technologies in the primate neocortex and discuss the current advances and tentative gaps for a comprehensive understanding of the primate neocortex.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yuhui Shen
- State Key Laboratory of Ophthalmology, Zhongshan Ophthalmic Center, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Ophthalmology and Visual Science, Guangzhou, 510060, China
| | - Mingting Shao
- State Key Laboratory of Ophthalmology, Zhongshan Ophthalmic Center, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Ophthalmology and Visual Science, Guangzhou, 510060, China
| | - Zhao-Zhe Hao
- State Key Laboratory of Ophthalmology, Zhongshan Ophthalmic Center, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Ophthalmology and Visual Science, Guangzhou, 510060, China
| | - Mengyao Huang
- State Key Laboratory of Ophthalmology, Zhongshan Ophthalmic Center, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Ophthalmology and Visual Science, Guangzhou, 510060, China
| | - Nana Xu
- State Key Laboratory of Ophthalmology, Zhongshan Ophthalmic Center, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Ophthalmology and Visual Science, Guangzhou, 510060, China
| | - Sheng Liu
- State Key Laboratory of Ophthalmology, Zhongshan Ophthalmic Center, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Ophthalmology and Visual Science, Guangzhou, 510060, China.
- Guangdong Province Key Laboratory of Brain Function and Disease, Guangzhou, 510080, China.
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Sohn J. Synaptic configuration and reconfiguration in the neocortex are spatiotemporally selective. Anat Sci Int 2024; 99:17-33. [PMID: 37837522 PMCID: PMC10771605 DOI: 10.1007/s12565-023-00743-5] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/24/2023] [Accepted: 09/14/2023] [Indexed: 10/16/2023]
Abstract
Brain computation relies on the neural networks. Neurons extend the neurites such as dendrites and axons, and the contacts of these neurites that form chemical synapses are the biological basis of signal transmissions in the central nervous system. Individual neuronal outputs can influence the other neurons within the range of the axonal spread, while the activities of single neurons can be affected by the afferents in their somatodendritic fields. The morphological profile, therefore, binds the functional role each neuron can play. In addition, synaptic connectivity among neurons displays preference based on the characteristics of presynaptic and postsynaptic neurons. Here, the author reviews the "spatial" and "temporal" connection selectivity in the neocortex. The histological description of the neocortical circuitry depends primarily on the classification of cell types, and the development of gene engineering techniques allows the cell type-specific visualization of dendrites and axons as well as somata. Using genetic labeling of particular cell populations combined with immunohistochemistry and imaging at a subcellular spatial resolution, we revealed the "spatial selectivity" of cortical wirings in which synapses are non-uniformly distributed on the subcellular somatodendritic domains in a presynaptic cell type-specific manner. In addition, cortical synaptic dynamics in learning exhibit presynaptic cell type-dependent "temporal selectivity": corticocortical synapses appear only transiently during the learning phase, while learning-induced new thalamocortical synapses persist, indicating that distinct circuits may supervise learning-specific ephemeral synapse and memory-specific immortal synapse formation. The selectivity of spatial configuration and temporal reconfiguration in the neural circuitry may govern diverse functions in the neocortex.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jaerin Sohn
- Department of Systematic Anatomy and Neurobiology, Graduate School of Dentistry, Osaka University, Suita, Osaka, 565-0871, Japan.
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Zou J, Hires SA. Inhibitory neurons: VIP neurons expect rewards. Curr Biol 2023; 33:R909-R911. [PMID: 37699349 DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2023.07.059] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 09/14/2023]
Abstract
Inhibitory neurons which express vasoactive intestinal polypeptide, VIPs, are a small subset of the mammalian cortex but in importance live up to their acronym. New research shows that these critical control knobs of cortical activity are specifically activated by actions taken when rewards are anticipated rather than consummated.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jing Zou
- Eaton-Peabody Laboratories, Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary, Boston, MA 02114, USA; Department of Otolaryngology - Head and Neck Surgery, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02114, USA
| | - Samuel Andrew Hires
- Department of Biological Sciences, Section of Neurobiology, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90089, USA.
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Ramamurthy DL, Chen A, Zhou J, Park C, Huang PC, Bharghavan P, Krishna G, Liu J, Casale K, Feldman DE. VIP interneurons in sensory cortex encode sensory and action signals but not direct reward signals. Curr Biol 2023; 33:3398-3408.e7. [PMID: 37499665 PMCID: PMC10528032 DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2023.06.086] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/11/2022] [Revised: 06/28/2023] [Accepted: 06/30/2023] [Indexed: 07/29/2023]
Abstract
Vasoactive intestinal peptide (VIP) interneurons in sensory cortex modulate sensory responses based on global exploratory behavior and arousal state, but their function during non-exploratory, goal-directed behavior is not well understood. In particular, whether VIP cells are activated by sensory cues, reward-seeking actions, or directly by reinforcement is unclear. We trained mice on a Go/NoGo whisker touch detection task that included a delay period and other features designed to separate sensory-evoked, action-related, and reward-related neural activity. Mice had to lick in response to a whisker stimulus to receive a variable-sized reward. Using two-photon calcium imaging, we measured ΔF/F responses of L2/3 VIP neurons in whisker somatosensory cortex (S1) during behavior. In both expert and novice mice, VIP cells were strongly activated by whisker stimuli and goal-directed actions (licking), but not by reinforcement. VIP cells showed somatotopic whisker tuning that was spatially organized relative to anatomical columns in S1, unlike lick-related signals which were spatially widespread. In expert mice, lick-related VIP responses were suppressed, not enhanced, when a reward was delivered, and the amount of suppression increased with reward size. This reward-related suppression was not seen in novice mice, where reward delivery was not yoked to licking. These results indicate that besides arousal and global state variables, VIP cells are activated by local sensory features and goal-directed actions, but not directly by reinforcement. Instead, our results are consistent with a role for VIP cells in encoding the expectation of reward associated with motor actions.
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Affiliation(s)
- Deepa L Ramamurthy
- Department of Molecular & Cell Biology and Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute, UC Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720-3200, USA.
| | - Andrew Chen
- Department of Molecular & Cell Biology and Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute, UC Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720-3200, USA
| | - Jiayu Zhou
- Department of Molecular & Cell Biology and Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute, UC Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720-3200, USA
| | - Chanbin Park
- Department of Molecular & Cell Biology and Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute, UC Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720-3200, USA
| | - Patrick C Huang
- Department of Molecular & Cell Biology and Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute, UC Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720-3200, USA
| | - Priyanka Bharghavan
- Department of Molecular & Cell Biology and Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute, UC Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720-3200, USA
| | - Gayathri Krishna
- Department of Molecular & Cell Biology and Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute, UC Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720-3200, USA
| | - Jinjian Liu
- Department of Molecular & Cell Biology and Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute, UC Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720-3200, USA
| | - Kayla Casale
- Department of Molecular & Cell Biology and Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute, UC Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720-3200, USA
| | - Daniel E Feldman
- Department of Molecular & Cell Biology and Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute, UC Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720-3200, USA.
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Si YG, Su WX, Chen XD, Li ZY, Yan B, Zhang JY. Emerging V1 neuronal ensembles with enhanced connectivity after associative learning. Front Neurosci 2023; 17:1176253. [PMID: 37456996 PMCID: PMC10346858 DOI: 10.3389/fnins.2023.1176253] [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: 02/28/2023] [Accepted: 06/09/2023] [Indexed: 07/18/2023] Open
Abstract
Introduction The visual stimulus-specific responses in the primary visual cortex (V1) undergo plastic changes after associative learning. During the learning process, neuronal ensembles, defined as groups of coactive neurons, are well known to be related to learning and memory. However, it remains unclear what effect learning has on ensembles, and which neuronal subgroups within those ensembles play a key role in associative learning. Methods We used two-photon calcium imaging in mice to record the activity of V1 neurons before and after fear conditioning associated with a visual cue (blue light). We first defined neuronal ensembles by thresholding their functional connectivity in response to blue (conditioned) or green (control) light. We defined neurons that existed both before and after conditioning as stable neurons. Neurons which were recruited after conditioning were defined as new neurons. The graph theory-based analysis was performed to quantify the changes in connectivity within ensembles after conditioning. Results A significant enhancement in the connectivity strength (the average correlation with other neurons) was observed in the blue ensembles after conditioning. We found that stable neurons within the blue ensembles showed a significantly smaller clustering coefficient (the value represented the degree of interconnectedness among a node's neighbors) after conditioning than they were before conditioning. Additionally, new neurons within the blue ensembles had a larger clustering coefficient, similar relative degree (the value represented the number of functional connections between neurons) and connectivity strength compared to stable neurons in the same ensembles. Discussion Overall, our results demonstrated that the plastic changes caused by conditioning occurred in subgroups of neurons in the ensembles. Moreover, new neurons from conditioned ensembles may play a crucial role in memory formation, as they exhibited not only similar connection competence in relative degree and connectivity strength as stable neurons, but also showed a significantly larger clustering coefficient compared to the stable neurons within the same ensembles after conditioning.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yue-Guang Si
- State Key Laboratory of Medical Neurobiology, MOE Frontiers Center for Brain Science, Institutes of Brain Science, Institute for Medical and Engineering Innovation, Eye & ENT Hospital, Fudan University, Shanghai, China
| | - Wen-Xin Su
- State Key Laboratory of Medical Neurobiology, MOE Frontiers Center for Brain Science, Institutes of Brain Science, Institute for Medical and Engineering Innovation, Eye & ENT Hospital, Fudan University, Shanghai, China
- Department of Psychology, University of Essex, Colchester, United Kingdom
| | - Xing-Dong Chen
- State Key Laboratory of Medical Neurobiology, MOE Frontiers Center for Brain Science, Institutes of Brain Science, Institute for Medical and Engineering Innovation, Eye & ENT Hospital, Fudan University, Shanghai, China
| | - Ze-Yu Li
- State Key Laboratory of Medical Neurobiology, MOE Frontiers Center for Brain Science, Institutes of Brain Science, Institute for Medical and Engineering Innovation, Eye & ENT Hospital, Fudan University, Shanghai, China
| | - Biao Yan
- State Key Laboratory of Medical Neurobiology, MOE Frontiers Center for Brain Science, Institutes of Brain Science, Institute for Medical and Engineering Innovation, Eye & ENT Hospital, Fudan University, Shanghai, China
| | - Jia-Yi Zhang
- State Key Laboratory of Medical Neurobiology, MOE Frontiers Center for Brain Science, Institutes of Brain Science, Institute for Medical and Engineering Innovation, Eye & ENT Hospital, Fudan University, Shanghai, China
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Lee C, Côté SL, Raman N, Chaudhary H, Mercado BC, Chen SX. Whole-brain mapping of long-range inputs to the VIP-expressing inhibitory neurons in the primary motor cortex. Front Neural Circuits 2023; 17:1093066. [PMID: 37275468 PMCID: PMC10237295 DOI: 10.3389/fncir.2023.1093066] [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: 11/08/2022] [Accepted: 05/05/2023] [Indexed: 06/07/2023] Open
Abstract
The primary motor cortex (MOp) is an important site for motor skill learning. Interestingly, neurons in MOp possess reward-related activity, presumably to facilitate reward-based motor learning. While pyramidal neurons (PNs) and different subtypes of GABAergic inhibitory interneurons (INs) in MOp all undergo cell-type specific plastic changes during motor learning, the vasoactive intestinal peptide-expressing inhibitory interneurons (VIP-INs) in MOp have been shown to preferentially respond to reward and play a critical role in the early phases of motor learning by triggering local circuit plasticity. To understand how VIP-INs might integrate various streams of information, such as sensory, pre-motor, and reward-related inputs, to regulate local plasticity in MOp, we performed monosynaptic rabies tracing experiments and employed an automated cell counting pipeline to generate a comprehensive map of brain-wide inputs to VIP-INs in MOp. We then compared this input profile to the brain-wide inputs to somatostatin-expressing inhibitory interneurons (SST-INs) and parvalbumin-expressing inhibitory interneurons (PV-INs) in MOp. We found that while all cell types received major inputs from sensory, motor, and prefrontal cortical regions, as well as from various thalamic nuclei, VIP-INs received more inputs from the orbital frontal cortex (ORB) - a region associated with reinforcement learning and value predictions. Our findings provide insight on how the brain leverages microcircuit motifs by both integrating and partitioning different streams of long-range input to modulate local circuit activity and plasticity.
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Affiliation(s)
- Candice Lee
- Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON, Canada
| | - Sandrine L. Côté
- Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON, Canada
| | - Nima Raman
- Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON, Canada
| | - Hritvic Chaudhary
- Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON, Canada
| | - Bryan C. Mercado
- Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON, Canada
| | - Simon X. Chen
- Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON, Canada
- Brain and Mind Research Institute, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON, Canada
- Center for Neural Dynamics, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON, Canada
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