ePoster

Regional and subregional heterogeneity of astrocyte signaling in brain metabolic nucleus

Clara Francoand 9 co-authors

Presenting Author

Conference
FENS Forum 2024 (2024)
Messe Wien Exhibition & Congress Center, Vienna, Austria

Conference

FENS Forum 2024

Messe Wien Exhibition & Congress Center, Vienna, Austria

Resources

Authors & Affiliations

Clara Franco, Cuong Pham, Agnès Chaperon, Christine Mouffle, Vincent Vialou, Bruno Cauli, Caroline Léger, Claire Martin, Serge Luquet, Dongdong Li

Abstract

The brain encodes and adapts to living environments. Brain function is maintained by interactions between neurons and glia, among which astrocytes relay important information in physiological and pathological responses. Understanding astrocyte signaling in specific life contexts will help to complete an integrative view about brain action. Energy homeostasis is the basis for the sustainability of life being. The brain hypothalamic nuclei play prominent roles in orchestrating body energy states, yet the signaling features of astrocytes remain to be characterized. Astrocytes display calcium dynamics as a principal signaling pathway for functional integration. In our study we characterized the endogenous features of astrocyte calcium signaling in the hypothalamic paraventricular nucleus, a key energy balance center relaying central neuroendocrine signals to the autonomic nervous system controlling body metabolism. We used interdisciplinary approaches involving mouse genetics, light-sheet microscopy and in vivo fiberphotometry. We show that astrocyte calcium signaling in the paraventricular nucleus displays a diversity of regional specificities as well as sub-regional heterogeneities. We observed that astrocyte calcium signaling in the paraventricular nucleus displays region-specific features, showing active spontaneous oscillations, synchronized phasic responses being temporally extended and showing high-level transmembrane calcium fluxes. Zooming into the paraventricular nucleus, we observed that astrocytes local microdomains react differently to the blockage of transmembrane calcium fluxes and to the silencing of neuronal transmissions. These observations suggest active and flexible signaling features in astrocytes in hypothalamic metabolic nucleus, which might be required to encode and respond to constant variations in the body’s metabolic states.

Unique ID: fens-24/regional-subregional-heterogeneity-b48ec723