Experience shapes chandelier cell function and structure in the visual cortex

Detailed characterization of interneuron types in primary visual cortex (V1) has greatly contributed to understanding visual perception, yet the role of chandelier cells (ChCs) in visual processing remains poorly characterized. Using viral tracing we found that V1 ChCs predominantly receive monosynaptic input from local layer 5 pyramidal cells and higher-order cortical regions. Two-photon calcium imaging and convolutional neural network modeling revealed that ChCs are visually responsive but weakly selective for stimulus content. In mice running in a virtual tunnel, ChCs respond strongly to events known to elicit arousal, including locomotion and visuomotor mismatch. Repeated exposure of the mice to the virtual tunnel was accompanied by reduced visual responses of ChCs and structural plasticity of ChC boutons and axon initial segment length. Finally, ChCs only weakly inhibited pyramidal cells. These findings suggest that ChCs provide an arousal-related signal to layer 2/3 pyramidal cells that may modulate their activity and/or gate plasticity of their axon initial segments during behaviorally relevant events.

Thalamic regulation of ocular dominance plasticity in adult visual cortex

Experience-dependent plasticity in the adult visual system is generally thought of as a cortical process. However, several recent studies have shown that perceptual learning or monocular deprivation can also induce plasticity in the adult dorsolateral geniculate nucleus (dLGN) of the thalamus. How plasticity in the thalamus and cortex interact in the adult visual system is ill-understood. To assess the influence of thalamic plasticity on plasticity in primary visual cortex (V1), we made use of our previous finding that during the critical period ocular dominance (OD) plasticity occurs in dLGN and requires thalamic synaptic inhibition. Using multielectrode recordings we find that this is also true in adult mice, and that in the absence of thalamic inhibition and plasticity, OD plasticity in adult V1 is absent. To study the influence of V1 on thalamic plasticity, we silenced V1 and show that during the critical period, but not in adulthood, the OD shift in dLGN is partially caused by feedback from V1. We conclude that during adulthood the thalamus plays an unexpectedly dominant role in experience-dependent plasticity in V1. Our findings highlight the importance of considering the thalamus as a potential source of plasticity in learning events that are typically thought of as cortical processes.

SpecSeg is a versatile toolbox that segments neurons and neurites in chronic calcium imaging datasets based on low-frequency cross-spectral power

Imaging calcium signals in neurons of animals using single- or multi-photon microscopy facilitates the study of coding in large neural populations. Such experiments produce massive datasets requiring powerful methods to extract responses from hundreds of neurons. We present SpecSeg, an open-source toolbox for (1) segmentation of regions of interest (ROIs) representing neuronal structures, (2) inspection and manual editing of ROIs, (3) neuropil correction and signal extraction, and (4) matching of ROIs in sequential recordings. ROI segmentation in SpecSeg is based on temporal cross-correlations of low-frequency components derived by Fourier analysis of each pixel with its neighbors. The approach is user-friendly, intuitive, and insightful and enables ROI detection around neurons or neurites. It works for single- (miniscope) and multi-photon microscopy data, eliminating the need for separate toolboxes. SpecSeg thus provides an efficient and versatile approach for analyzing calcium responses in neuronal structures imaged over prolonged periods of time.