Topic: striatal neurons

We can perform a diverse range of innate and learned behaviors – from running and jumping to a swift tennis serve – with remarkable coordination and grace. While skillful execution of innate and learned behaviors is supported by sensorimotor striatum, how this region encodes behavior remains poorly understood. Studies based on learned skills suggest striatal neurons represent skills as neural sequences, with each neuron locked to a feature of the stereotyped motor output. However, whether this coding scheme generalizes to innate behaviors or emerges through learning is not known. One possibili

Huntington's disease (HD) is an inherited, incurable neurodegenerative disease that primarily affects neurons in the striatum. In the present study, we successfully used an optimized cell model of HD [Kraskovskaya et al., 2023] to evaluate the effectiveness of the sigma 1 receptor agonist compound 3-PPP (N-n-propyl-3-(3-hydroxyphenyl)piperidine). We showed that striatal neurons obtained by direct reprogramming of dermal fibroblasts from HD patients (HD iSN) exhibit aggregates of mutant huntingtin, but the number of cells containing aggregates is less than 5% of the total. We also showed that t

The release of neuropeptides from dense-core vesicles (DCVs) is crucial in the nervous system. We previously identified RAB3 as a specific regulator of neuropeptide secretion in hippocampal neurons, as the ablation of all four RAB3 paralogs leads to a total block of DCV exocytosis. However, it is unknown whether this phenotype is conserved across different neuronal cell types. Here, we investigate potentially divergent regulatory mechanisms of RAB proteins governing DCV exocytosis in distinct neuronal populations. Our study identifies RAB3A as the key regulator of DCV exocytosis in hypothalami

Shank3 is a postsynaptic cytoskeletal protein that acts as an intracellular scaffold supporting various subsequent synaptic components. Its deficiency is associated with significant changes in the morphology and electrophysiological properties of dopaminergic neurons and the expression of various synaptic proteins affecting normal brain development primarily during the early stages. These disruptions in neuronal circuits lead to changes in social interactions, communication skills, and behavioral patterns, commonly observed in neurodevelopmental disorders like autism. To better understand thes