Topic: principal neurons

Passive odor exposure can change olfactory perception beyond simple pattern separation. Recent studies reveal that principal neurons in the mouse olfactory bulb exhibit bi-directional changes in population- level representations that depend on input similarity. Our analysis reveals the presence of a systematic drift, manifested as rotation of population vectors away from their initial representations. We explain these phenomena using a recurrent inhibition feedback model with unsupervised Hebbian learning. Our model predicts a power- law decay in mean population activity over days of odor expo

Despite extensive research into the classic subfields of the hippocampus, the fasciola cinerea (FC), a medially located structure within the hippocampal formation, remains understudied. In order to gain insight into the unique features and potential functions of the FC, we examined the morphology, physiology, and connectivity of its principal neurons in anesthetized mice. Using in-vivo single-cell juxtacellular recording-labeling and quantitative morphometric analysis, we found that FC neurons exhibit unique firing patterns and dendritic architectures, which are distinct from principal cell po

The basolateral amygdala (BLA) is a cortical structure playing a role in various cognitive processes. In spite of many studies focusing on local information processing within the circuits of the BLA, the features of amygdalar principal neurons (PNs) remained elusive. Here, we combined neuroanatomical, electrophysiological and tracing techniques to determine the single-cell features, dendritic and axonal projections of PNs within the lateral (LA) and basal amygdala (BA). Using a mouse reporter line, we found that cholecystokinin (CCK) expression defined two groups of spatially segregated PNs bo

Activation of hippocampal inhibitory pathways is essential for maintaining the balance between excitation and inhibition during hippocampal information processing. Somatostatin (SOM) and Parvalbumin (PV) positive GABAergic neurons are two major classes of interneurons in the hippocampus, providing strong dendritic and peri-somatic inhibition to excitatory neurons, respectively. It is well known that exposure of mice to an enriched environment (EE) reliably increases performance on hippocampus-dependent learning and memory tasks. However, the mechanisms underlying the behavioral improvements an

Principal neurons with dendritic axon origins offer privileged pathways for information flow through the hippocampal network and between brain hemispheres. Traditionally overshadowed in research, the GABAergic interneurons play a crucial role in modulating network activity. Our research leverages genetic and immunofluorescent markers to dissect the morphological variance among inhibitory neuron subpopulations, focusing on the axon initial segments (AIS) — key sites for action potential generation. Our study captures the extensive diversity of proximal interneuron morphologies within the murine

Fear-related memory traces are encoded by sparse populations of hippocampal principal neurons that are recruited based on their inhibitory–excitatory balance during memory formation. Later, the re-activation of the same principal neurons can recall the memory. The details of this mechanism are still unclear. Here, we investigated whether disinhibition could play a major role in this process. Using optogenetic behavioral experiments we found that when fear was associated with the inhibition of mouse hippocampal somatostatin positive interneurons, the re-inhibition of the same interneurons could

Male predominance is one of the least understood characteristics of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). While more than a hundred genes are involved in ASD, only a few of them show sex differences in behavior. In a previous work, we found that male mice harboring a mutation in the Pogz gene (Pogz+/-) show sexually dimorphic overly friendly behavior in several sociability assays. Mapping the engaged neurons during social recognition revealed that in Pogz+/- males, there are more activated neurons in the basolateral amygdala (BLA) than control and Pogz+/- female mice. To characterize the morphophysi

Recent data show that women are more likely to drink alcohol to cope with stress, compared to men. We hypothesized that changes in circuit function in the basolateral (BLA) and central amygdala (CeA) of females could prime for this sex-specific effect of stress on ethanol drinking. To test this, we first developed a behavioral model that captures sex differences in stress-induced ethanol drinking. After training male and female C57BL/6J mice in a drinking-in-the-dark paradigm, we show that female mice drink more ethanol following repeated exposure to a foot shock stressor, compared to male mic

Chandelier cells (ChCs) that are present only in cortical structures selectively form synapses on the axon initial segments (AISs) of principal neurons (PNs) – the site of action potential generation. Therefore, these GABAergic cells are in the position to control the spiking of their postsynaptic partners in the most powerful way. Here, we compared anatomical and electrophysiological features of ChCs sampled in the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) of the Nkx2.1-Cre and PVeGFP mouse lines.By performing whole-cell recordings from ChCs in acute prefrontal cortical slices, we found that ChCs label