TRANSCRIPTIONAL LANDSCAPE OF THE DEVELOPING MOUSE PREFRONTAL CORTEX

The prefrontal cortex (PFC) is a key region for executive functioning, including motivation, decision making, planning, as well as emotion and social behaviour. It contains a diversity of cell types, receives long-range inputs from a variety of brain regions, sends outputs to an equally large number of regions, and forms strong local circuits. Dysfunction of the PFC and miswiring of those circuits leads to neuropsychiatric disorders. Contrasting to other cortical brain areas, PFC maturation is prolonged and goes on well into adult life. This particularity makes the PFC an interesting target to study in development. While the organization and the cell type structure of the adult PFC is largely known, dynamic changes during brain development are not uncovered.
In this project, we aim to investigate how the mouse PFC changes during brain development. Using droplet-based single-cell RNAseq, we profile cells at different postnatal timepoints, and classify cell types in the PFC. We aim to uncover transcriptional changes during the development of PFC neuronal and non-neuronal cell types. This will allow us to gain a deeper insight into transcriptional dynamics during early postnatal development, and how they might relate to the establishment of PFC-circuitry.