Topic: cortical astrocytes

Astrocytes are an essential part of the brain active milieu and generate complex spatiotemporal patterns of calcium activity during animal behavior. The properties, mechanisms, and physiological relevance of these patterns are still poorly understood. Here, we performed two-photon calcium imaging in cortical astrocytes expressing cyto-GCaMP6f in head-fixed mice running on a rotating platform. In each imaging frame, suprathreshold calcium activity regions (segments of spatiotemporal calcium events) were detected. We analyzed ΔF/F, total active area, mean segment area, and segment density during

Astrocytes constitute a heterogeneous population of cells in terms of function and morphology. Although several embryonic sources of cortical astrocytes have been reported, cortical progenitors located from the dorsal pallium are considered their main production site. However, the potential link between the heterogeneity of cortical astrocytes and their developmental origin remains elusive. Recently, we identified a new embryonic source for cortical protoplasmic astrocytes located outside of the dorsal pallium, in a restricted domain containing Aldh1L1-expressing cells. In order to further cha

A primary goal of cortical physiology is to explain how the cortex transforms incoming information to generate precise output behaviour. A recent work from our group show that cortical astrocytes are crucial to set the threshold detection of neuronal circuities across cortical layers to compute specific sensory modalities. But how can astrocyte help to set the sensibility of neurons in a modality-specific manner? By using in vivo electrophysiology and sensory experiments in fosTRAP2 mice, we show that disruption of cortical astrocyte activity impairs the transfer of information across the feed

Astrocytes are rapidly gaining ground as important regulators and potential therapeutic targets in neurodegeneration. Here, we used the cuprizone model of multiple sclerosis to explore the phenotypic signature of astrocytes in the cortex of mice during early demyelination at week 3 (CPZ3), a timepoint of initial demyelination and glia cell activation. Confocal imaging combined with detailed cell-morphometric analysis of cortical astrocytes after 3-dimensional cell reconstruction revealed the morphological phenotype of astrocytes in early demyelination, characterized by thick and long processes