Topic: TdTomato

The panic of losing your car in the carpark captures the importance of associative recognition memory, i.e. the ability to identify something as familiar, along with where and when it was last seen. However, the neuronal networks underpinning this memory are only just being identified. Effectively modelled through object-in-place (OIP) tasks, associative recognition memory can be represented by the time mice spend exploring novel compared to familiar objects and configurations. During learning, active neurons are recruited into neuronal ensembles making an engram, the neural representation of

Early-life adversity (ELA) is a leading risk factor for developing mental disorders such as depression or anxiety in adulthood. Some of its anatomical and molecular correlates were described under multiple stress paradigms, acute and chronic alike, in various species. However it is unclear how the cellular substrate of traumatic memories associated with ELA evolves through life and can participate in its behavioral outcome. To allow lifelong tracking of neuronal populations recruited during early-life stress we used FosTRAP2 mice in a juvenile (P21) social defeat model (jSD), in which neuronal

Monocular deprivation (MD), the temporary closure of one eye, shifts neuronal responses in the visual cortex towards the open eye. This functional change is accompanied by formation of new dendritic spines. However, the presynaptic partners of these new spines have not yet been identified. Here we introduce a novel approach, two-timeframe monosynaptic rabies virus tracing, to survey the whole brain for new inputs associated with ocular dominance (OD) plasticity.First, in a tdTomato reporter mouse we infect starter cells (expressing a helper construct) with a rabies virus carrying eGFP and indu

Which specific ventral spared interneuron populations take part in spinal tissue reorganization after a traumatic injury (TSCI) has not been clarified yet. We hypothesize that these cells could reactivate developmental processes to be able to form new connections, and that this process could help us to characterize them after lesion. qPCR results indicated a potential re-expression of the transcription factor Vsx1, (which in a normal situation is transiently expressed at early embryonic stages in an intermediate V2 interneurons compartment and absent in the adult spinal cord) 2 weeks after TSC