Deep Cortical Layers Are Activated Directly by Thalamus

SOX5 Controls the Sequential Generation of Distinct Corticofugal Neuron Subtypes

1. Spontaneous and stimulus-induced activity were recorded from corresponding somatotopic representations in the ventroposterolateral nucleus (VPL) of the thalamus and primary somatosensory (SI) cortex of intact, halothane-anesthetized cats. Thalamic and cortical neurons with overlapping receptive fields on the hairy skin of the forelimb were excited by a series of interleaved air jets aimed at multiple skin sites. 2. The laminar locations of 68% (240 of 355) of the neurons recorded in SI cortex were histologically reconstructed and responses of these 240 SI neurons were analyzed with respect to responses recorded from 118 thalamic neurons. Maximum responsiveness during the initial onset (1st 100 ms) of air jet stimulation was similar for neurons distributed throughout all layers of SI cortex (2-4 spikes per stimulus) and did not differ significantly from VPL responses. During the subsequent plateau phase of the stimulus, VPL neurons discharged at a mean rate of 19.0 spikes/ s and neurons in cortical layers II, IIIa, IIIb, and IV discharged at similar rates. Mean responsiveness during the plateau phase of the stimulus was significantly reduced among neurons in cortical layers V and VI and only averaged 7.1 and 3.9 spikes/s, respectively. 3. Responses recorded simultaneously from pairs of thalamic and cortical neurons were analyzed with cross-correlation analysis to determine differences in the incidence and strength of neuronal interactions as a function of cortical layer. Among 421 thalamocortical neuron pairs displaying stimulus-induced responses, 68 neuron pairs exhibited significant interactions during air jet stimulation. A laminar analysis revealed that 28% (45 of 163) of the neurons in the middle cortical layers displayed significant interactions with thalamic neurons, whereas only 14% (13 of 92) of superficial layer neurons and 6% (10 of 166) of deep layer neurons were synchronized with thalamic activity during air jet stimulation. When thalamocortical efficacy for different layers of cortex was plotted as a cumulative frequency distribution, the strongest interactions in the middle cortical layers were twice as strong as interactions involving the superficial or deep cortical layers. 4. More than 70% of stimulus-induced interactions involved thalamic discharges followed by subsequent cortical discharges and the majority of these interactions involved interspike intervals of < or = 3 ms. Nearly 75% (27 of 37) of interactions in the thalamocortical direction that involved cortical neurons in layers IIIb and IV transpired within a 3-ms interspike interval. For interactions with superficial or deep cortical layers, the proportion of thalamocortical interactions transpiring within 3 ms was only 58% (7 of 12) and 33% (2 of 6), respectively. 5. Cross-correlation analysis of spontaneous activity indicated that 124 pairs of thalamic and cortical neurons displayed synchronous activity in the absence of sensory stimulation. A laminar analysis indicated that similar proportions of cortical neurons in each layer were synchronized with thalamic activity in the absence of cutaneous stimulation. Thus 27% (44 of 163) of middle layer neurons, 30% (28 of 92) of superficial layer neurons, and 31% (51 of 166) of deep layer neurons displayed spontaneous interactions with thalamic neurons. The temporal pattern of spontaneous activity was examined with autocorrelation analysis to determine whether neuronal oscillations were essential for coordinating thalamic and cortical activity in the absence of peripheral stimulation. Only 18.5% (23 of 124) of spontaneous interactions between thalamic and cortical neurons were associated with periodic activity, which suggests that thalamocortical synchronization occurs before the constituent neurons begin to oscillate. 6. The influence of sensory stimulation on spontaneous interactions was examined in 31 pairs of thalamic and cortical neurons that exhibited interactions during prestimulus and stimulus in

In a previous study the authors found that dendritic spine density was reduced on prefrontal pyramidal neurons in layer 3 of subjects with schizophrenia. From a neural circuitry perspective, understanding the pathophysiological significance of this finding requires knowledge of whether pyramidal neurons in other cortical layers are similarly affected. The authors' goal was to determine whether their finding in layer 3 was also present in other cortical layers in the same group of subjects with schizophrenia. Spine density and other dendritic measures were made for pyramidal neurons in layers 5 and 6 of prefrontal area 46 in the brains of deceased subjects with schizophrenia, subjects with other psychiatric disorders, and normal comparison subjects. None of the dendritic measures for layer 5 or 6 pyramidal neurons differed across the subject groups, but the within-subject differences in spine density between deep layer 3 and layer 5 or 6 pyramidal neurons were significantly greater in the patients with schizophrenia than in the comparison subjects. These findings are consistent with the idea that prefrontal pyramidal neurons involved in corticocortical and/or thalamocortical connections are preferentially affected in schizophrenia.

Primates (including humans) have a highly developed corticospinal tract, and specialized motor cortical areas which differ in key ways from rodents. Much work on motor cortex has therefore used macaque monkeys as a good animal model for human motor control. However, there is a paucity of data describing the fundamental functional architecture of primate primary motor cortex, which is best addressed with in vitro approaches. In this study we examined the cellular properties and the micro‐circuitry of the adult macaque primary motor cortex by carrying out in‐vitro intracellular recordings. We aimed to characterize the basic properties of the cortical circuitry by studying the intrinsic properties of its pyramidal neurons and their physiological interconnectivity. We studied the passive and active electrophysiological properties of pyramidal neurons in both superficial and deep cortical layers. Both superficial and deep pyramidal neurons exhibited bursting behaviour that could act as powerful excitation for downstream targets. Synaptic connections were lamina specific. Neurons in the deep layers had convergent excitatory inputs from all cortical layers whereas superficial neurons had only significant inputs from superficial layers. This sheds light on the functional architecture of the primate primary motor cortex and how its output is shaped. We also took the unique opportunity in our recording technique to characterize the relationship between intracellular and extracellular spike waveforms, with implications for cell‐type identification in studies in awake behaving monkey. Our results will aid the interpretation of primate studies into motor control involving extracellular spike recordings and electrical stimulation in primary motor cortex.

In the primary visual cortex area V1 activation of inhibitory interneurons, which provide negative feedback for excitatory pyramidal neurons, can improve visual response reliability and orientation selectivity. Moreover, optogenetic activation of one class of interneurons, parvalbumin (PV) positive cells, reduces the receptive field (RF) width. These data suggest that in V1 the negative feedback improves visual information processing. However, according to information theory, noise can limit information content in a signal, and to the best of our knowledge, in V1 signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) has never been estimated following either pyramidal or inhibitory neuron activation. Therefore, we optogenetically activated pyramidal or PV neurons in the deep layers of cortical area V1 and measured the SNR and RF area in nearby pyramidal neurons. Activation of pyramidal or PV neurons increased the SNR by 267% and 318%, respectively, and reduced the RF area to 60.1% and 77.5%, respectively, of that of the control. A simple integrate-and-fire neuron model demonstrated that an improved SNR and a reduced RF area can increase the amount of information encoded by neurons. We conclude that in V1 activation of pyramidal neurons improves visual information processing since the location of the visual stimulus can be pinpointed more accurately (via a reduced RF area), and more information is encoded by neurons (due to increased SNR).

Intermediate Progenitor Cohorts Differentially Generate Cortical Layers and Require Tbr2 for Timely Acquisition of Neuronal Subtype Identity.

The Temporal Sequence of the Mammalian Neocortical Neurogenetic Program Drives Mediolateral Pattern in the Chick Pallium

The aim of the study was to compare the effect of housing conditions on the intact and lesioned brain. Focal brain ischemia was induced by ligation of the right middle cerebral artery distal to the striatal branches in male, spontaneously hypertensive rats. The rats were postoperatively housed in individual cages for 24 h, then housed either in an enriched environment, i.e. larger cages allowing various activities or in standard laboratory cages, four to five animals in each cage. Nonlesioned rats were housed in the same way. Three weeks later the rats were anesthetized and the brains perfused with formaldehyde in situ. The dendritic geometry was studied with Three-Dimensional confocal laser scanning microscopy after microinjection of Lucifer Yellow in individual pyramidal neurons in layers II/III and V/VI in the left parietal cortex. Nissl-stained sections were used to visualize layers and area borders of the cortex. Nonlesioned rats in the enriched environment had significantly more dendritic spines than rats in standard cages, in all layers studied. Individual spine morphology was significantly different, with more branched spines and an increase of spine head and neck diameter, in enriched rats. In lesioned rats housed in the standard environment, pyramidal neurons in cortical layers II/III contralateral to the infarct were more heterogeneous then in nonlesioned rats in the same environment, and the number of spines was reduced. Neurons in rats postoperatively housed in an enriched environment were less heterogeneous and had significantly more spines than rats in standard housing (P<0.05), reaching the same number as in intact rats in a standard environment. In layers V/VI the number of dendritic spines on pyramidal neurons was significantly lower than in intact rats, in both lesioned groups. We conclude that housing in an enriched environment increases neuronal plasticity in the intact brain, and in addition, significantly improves dendritic morphology of contralateral pyramidal neurons in layers II/III after permanent focal brain ischemia.

Extensive Transduction and Enhanced Spread of a Modified AAV2 Capsid in the Non-human Primate CNS.

Neural activity plays roles in the later stages of development of cortical excitatory neurons, including dendritic and axonal arborization, remodeling, and synaptogenesis. However, its role in earlier stages, such as migration and dendritogenesis, is less clear. Here we investigated roles of neural activity in the maturation of cortical neurons, using calcium imaging and expression of prokaryotic voltage-gated sodium channel, NaChBac. Calcium imaging experiments showed that postmigratory neurons in layer II/III exhibited more frequent spontaneous calcium transients than migrating neurons. To test whether such an increase of neural activity may promote neuronal maturation, we elevated the activity of migrating neurons by NaChBac expression. Elevation of neural activity impeded migration, and induced premature branching of the leading process before neurons arrived at layer II/III. Many NaChBac-expressing neurons in deep cortical layers were not attached to radial glial fibers, suggesting that these neurons had stopped migration. Morphological and immunohistochemical analyses suggested that branched leading processes of NaChBac-expressing neurons differentiated into dendrites. Our results suggest that developmental control of spontaneous calcium transients is critical for maturation of cortical excitatory neurons in vivo: keeping cellular excitability low is important for migration, and increasing spontaneous neural activity may stop migration and promote dendrite formation.

Substance P and substance P receptor histochemistry in human neurodegenerative diseases

The generation, migration, and morphogenesis of atypically oriented pyramidal neurons in the rat visual cortex were examined. In the mature cortex, these neurons were distributed through layers II-VI. Moreover, the atypically oriented pyramidal neurons in a particular layer tended to be oriented in a specific way; atypically oriented pyramidal neurons in layer II, layers III-VIa, and layer VIb were obliquely, radially, and obliquely oriented, respectively. Ultrastructurally, the somata of atypically oriented pyramidal neurons contained large euchromatic ovoid nuclei and cytoplasm that was replete with rough endoplasmic reticulum and Golgi apparatus. These somata formed only symmetric axosomatic synapses. Many atypically oriented pyramidal neurons projected axons into the white matter as demonstrated by a Golgi method and by a retrograde tract-tracing technique; however, some of these pyramidal neurons in layers III-V had axons that ascended to layer I. By using a technique which combined retrograde tract tracing with [3H]thymidine autoradiography, it was determined that most atypically oriented pyramidal neurons in layers V and VIa, layer IV, and layer II were generated on gestational days (GD) 15-17, GD 17-19, and GD 20-21, respectively. Atypically oreinted pyramidal neurons were identified during the period from postnatal day 0 (day of birth) to day 30. On day 0, obliquely oriented pyramidal neurons were distributed in the deep cortical plate, i.e., immature layer VI. On day 3, the youngest atypically oriented pyramidal neurons were radially oriented and were located in layer IV. Some obliquely oriented pyramidal neurons were present in layer II on day 6, but the greatest number and the most severely canted pyramidal neurons in layer II were evident on day 9. The orientations of the cell body and the apical dendrite did not change appreciably after migration was complete, except for those in layers V and VI with obliquely oriented cell bodies and radially oriented apical dendrites. The second and third postnatal weeks were marked by substantial morphological differentiation of all pyramidal neurons as noted by the lengthening and branching of dendrites and by the appearance of dendritic spines. By the fourth postnatal week, atypically oriented pyramidal neurons achieved their mature morphology. The generation, migration, and morphogenesis of atypically oriented pyramidal neurons proceed by an inside-to-outside sequence. This development is similar and concurrent with that of typically oriented pyramidal neurons.

It is postulated that synchronous firing of cortical neurons plays an active role in cognitive functions of the brain. An important issue is whether pyramidal neurons in different cortical layers exhibit similar tendencies to synchronise. To address this issue, we performed intracellular and whole-cell recordings of regular-spiking pyramidal neurons in slice preparations of the rat motor cortex (18-45 days old) and analysed the phase response curves of these pyramidal neurons in layers 2/3 and 5. The phase response curve represents how an external stimulus affects the timing of spikes immediately after the stimulus in repetitively firing neurons. The phase response curve can be classified into two categories, type 1 (the spike is always advanced) and type 2 (the spike is advanced or delayed depending on the stimulus phase), and are important determinants of whether or not rhythmic synchronization of neuron pairs occurs. We found that pyramidal neurons in layer 2/3 tend to display type-2 phase response curves whereas those in layer 5 tend to exhibit type-1 phase response curves. The differences were prominent particularly in the gamma-frequency range (20-45 Hz). Our results imply that the layer-2/3 pyramidal neurons, when coupled mutually through fast excitatory synapses, may exhibit a much stronger tendency for rhythmic synchronization than layer-5 neurons in the gamma-frequency range.

Thalamus Modulates Consciousness Via Layer-Specific Control of Cortex

Little is known about regionally specific signals that control the number of neuronal progenitor cells in vivo. We have previously shown that the germline mutation of the basic fibroblast growth factor (Fgf2) gene results in a reduction in the number of cortical neurons in the adult. We show here that Fgf2 is expressed in the pseudostratified ventricular epithelium (PVE) in a dorsoventral gradient and that Fgf2 and its receptor, Fgfr-1, are downregulated by mid to late stages of neurogenesis. In Fgf2 knockout mice, the volume and cell number of the dorsal PVE (the cerebral cortical anlage) are substantially smaller, whereas the volume of the basal PVE is unchanged. The dorsal PVE of Fgf2 knockout mice has a 50% decrease in founder cells and a reduced expansion of the progenitor pool over the first portion of neurogenesis. Despite this reduction, the degree of apoptosis within the PVE is not changed in the Fgf2 knockouts. Cortical neuron number was decreased by 45% in Fgf2 knockout mice by the end of neurogenesis, whereas the number of neurons in the basal ganglia was unaffected. Microscopically, the frontal cerebral cortex of neonatal Fgf2 null mutant mice lacked large neurons in deep cortical layers. We suggest that Fgf2 is required for the generation of a specific class of cortical neurons arising from the dorsal PVE.