Aging and neurodegenerative diseases lead to decline in thinking and memory ability. The subfields of the hippocampus (HCsf) play important roles in memory formation and recall. Imaging techniques sensitive to the underlying HCsf tissue microstructure can reveal unique structure–function associations and their vulnerability in aging and disease. The goal of this study was to use magnetic resonance elastography (MRE), a noninvasive MR imaging-based technique that can quantitatively image the viscoelastic mechanical properties of tissue to determine the associations of HCsf stiffness with different cognitive domains across the lifespan. Eighty-eight adult participants completed the study (age 23–81 years, male/female 36/51), in which we aimed to determine which HCsf regions most strongly correlated with different memory performance outcomes and if viscoelasticity of specific HCsf regions mediated the relationship between age and performance. Our results revealed that both interference cost on a verbal memory...

Neuronal activity initiates signaling cascades that culminate in diverse outcomes including structural and functional neuronal plasticity, and metabolic changes. While studies have revealed activity-dependent neuronal cell type-specific transcriptional changes, unbiased quantitative analysis of cell-specific activity-induced dynamics in newly synthesized proteins (NSPs) synthesis in vivo has been complicated by cellular heterogeneity and a relatively low abundance of NSPs within the proteome in the brain. Here we combined targeted expression of mutant MetRS (methionine tRNA synthetase) in genetically defined cortical glutamatergic neurons with tight temporal control of treatment with the noncanonical amino acid, azidonorleucine, to biotinylate NSPs within a short period after pharmacologically induced seizure in male and female mice. By purifying peptides tagged with heavy or light biotin-alkynes and using direct tandem mass spectrometry detection of biotinylated peptides, we quantified activity-induced ch...

Peripheral neuropathic pain induced by the chemotherapeutic cisplatin can persist for months to years after treatment. Histone deacetylase 6 (HDAC6) inhibitors have therapeutic potential for cisplatin-induced neuropathic pain since they persistently reverse mechanical hypersensitivity and spontaneous pain in rodent models. Here, we investigated the mechanisms underlying reversal of mechanical hypersensitivity in male and female mice by a 2 week treatment with an HDAC6 inhibitor, administered 3 d after the last dose of cisplatin. Mechanical hypersensitivity in animals of both sexes treated with the HDAC6 inhibitor was temporarily reinstated by a single injection of the neutral opioid receptor antagonist 6β-naltrexol or the peripherally restricted opioid receptor antagonist naloxone methiodide. These results suggest that tonic peripheral opioid ligand-receptor signaling mediates reversal of cisplatin-induced mechanical hypersensitivity after treatment with an HDAC6 inhibitor. Pointing to a specific role for ...

Sensory loss leads to widespread cross-modal plasticity across brain areas to allow the remaining senses to guide behavior. While multimodal sensory interactions are often attributed to higher-order sensory areas, cross-modal plasticity has been observed at the level of synaptic changes even across primary sensory cortices. In particular, vision loss leads to widespread circuit adaptation in the primary auditory cortex (A1) even in adults. Here we report using mice of both sexes in which cross-modal plasticity occurs even earlier in the sensory-processing pathway at the level of the thalamus in a modality-selective manner. A week of visual deprivation reduced inhibitory synaptic transmission from the thalamic reticular nucleus (TRN) to the primary auditory thalamus (MGBv) without changes to the primary visual thalamus (dLGN). The plasticity of TRN inhibition to MGBv was observed as a reduction in postsynaptic gain and short-term depression. There was no observable plasticity of the cortical feedback excita...

Anterolateral system (AS) neurons transmit pain signals from the spinal cord to the brain. Their morphology, anatomy, and physiological properties have been extensively characterized and suggest that specific AS neurons and their brain targets are concerned with the discriminatory aspects of noxious stimuli, such as their location or intensity, and their motivational/emotive dimension. Among the recently unraveled molecular markers of AS neurons is the developmentally expressed transcription factor Phox2a, providing us with the opportunity to selectively disrupt the embryonic wiring of AS neurons to gain insights into the logic of their adult function. As mice with a spinal-cord-specific loss of the netrin-1 receptor deleted in colorectal carcinoma (DCC) have increased AS neuron innervation of ipsilateral brain targets and defective noxious stimulus localization or topognosis, we generated mice of either sex carrying a deletion of Dcc in Phox2a neurons. Such DccPhox2a mice displayed impaired topognosis alo...

Aging is the greatest risk factor for the development of neurodegenerative diseases, yet we still do not understand how the aging process leads to pathological vulnerability. The research community has relied heavily on mouse models, but the considerable anatomical, physiological, and cognitive differences between mice and humans limit their translational relevance. Ultimately, these barriers necessitate the development of novel aging models. As a non-human primate, the common marmoset ( Callithrix jacchus ) shares many features in common with humans and yet has a significantly shorter lifespan (10 years) than other primates, making it ideally suited to longitudinal studies of aging. Our objective was to evaluate the marmoset as a model of age-related cognitive impairment. To do this, we utilized the Delayed Recognition Span Task (DRST) to characterize age-related changes in working memory capacity in a cohort of sixteen marmosets, of both sexes, varying in age from young adult to geriatric. These monkeys ...

α2δ-1 (encoded by the Cacna2d1 gene) is a newly discovered NMDA receptor–interacting protein and is the therapeutic target of gabapentinoids (e.g., gabapentin and pregabalin), frequently used for treating patients with neuropathic pain. Nerve injury causes sustained α2δ-1 upregulation in the dorsal root ganglion (DRG), which promotes NMDA receptor synaptic trafficking and activation in the spinal dorsal horn, a hallmark of chronic neuropathic pain. However, little is known about how nerve injury initiates and maintains the high expression level of α2δ-1 to sustain chronic pain. Here, we show that nerve injury caused histone hyperacetylation and diminished enrichment of histone deacetylase-2 (HDAC2), but not HDAC3, at the Cacna2d1 promoter in the DRG. Strikingly, Hdac2 knockdown or conditional knockout in DRG neurons in male and female mice consistently induced long-lasting mechanical pain hypersensitivity, which was readily reversed by blocking NMDA receptors, inhibiting α2δ-1 with gabapentin, or disruptin...

Neuroimaging studies of individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) consistently find an aberrant pattern of “reduced” laterality in brain networks that support functions related to social communication and language. However, it is unclear how the underlying functional organization of these brain networks is altered in ASD individuals. We tested four models of “reduced” laterality in a social-communication network in seventy ASD individuals (14 females) and a control group of the same number of tightly matched typically developing (TD) individuals (19 females) using high quality resting-state fMRI data and a method of measuring patterns of functional laterality across the brain. We found that a functionally defined social-communication network exhibited the typical pattern of left laterality in both groups, while there was a significant increase in within- relative to across-hemisphere connectivity of homotopic regions in the right hemisphere in ASD individuals. Furthermore, greater within- relative t...

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is associated with chronic psychiatric complications and increased risk for development of neurodegenerative pathology. Aged individuals account for most TBI-related hospitalizations and deaths. Nonetheless, neurobiological mechanisms that underlie worsened functional outcomes after TBI in the elderly remain unclear. Therefore, this study aimed to identify pathways that govern differential responses to TBI with age. Here, adult (2 mo) and aged (16-18 mo) male C57BL/6 mice were subjected to diffuse brain injury (midline fluid percussion), and cognition, gliosis, and neuroinflammation were determined 7 or 30 days post injury (dpi). Cognitive impairment was evident 7 dpi, independent of age. There was enhanced morphological restructuring of microglia and astrocytes 7 dpi in the cortex and hippocampus of aged mice compared to adults. Transcriptional analysis revealed robust age-dependent amplification of cytokine/chemokine, complement, innate immune, and interferon-associated infla...

Previous research suggests that literacy, specifically learning alphabetic letter-to-phoneme mappings, modifies online speech processing, and enhances brain responses, as indexed by the blood-oxygenation level dependent signal (BOLD), to speech in auditory areas associated with phonological processing (Dehaene et al., 2010). However, alphabets are not the only orthographic systems in use in the world, and hundreds of millions of individuals speak languages that are not written using alphabets. In order to make claims that literacy per se has broad and general consequences for brain responses to speech, one must seek confirmatory evidence from non-alphabetic literacy. To this end, we conducted a longitudinal fMRI study in India probing the effect of literacy in Devanagari, an abubgida, on functional connectivity and cerebral responses to speech in 91 variously literate Hindi-speaking male and female human participants. Twenty-two completely illiterate participants underwent six months of reading and writing...