Intrinsic neuronal variability significantly limits information encoding in the primary visual cortex (V1). However, under certain conditions, neurons can respond reliably with highly precise responses to the same visual stimuli from trial to trial. This suggests that there exists intrinsic neural circuit mechanisms that dynamically modulate the intertrial variability of visual cortical neurons. Here, we sought to elucidate the role of different inhibitory interneurons (INs) in reliable coding in mouse V1. To study the interactions between somatostatin-expressing interneurons (SST-INs) and parvalbumin-expressing interneurons (PV-INs), we used a dual-color calcium imaging technique that allowed us to simultaneously monitor these two neural ensembles while awake mice, of both sexes, passively viewed natural movies. SST neurons were more active during epochs of reliable pyramidal neuron firing, whereas PV neurons were more active during epochs of unreliable firing. SST neuron activity lagged that of PV neuron...

Social behaviors, including reproductive behaviors, often display sexual dimorphism. Lordosis, the measure of female sexual receptivity, is one of the most apparent sexually dimorphic reproductive behaviors. Lordosis is regulated by estrogen and progesterone (P4) acting within a hypothalamic-limbic circuit, consisting of the arcuate, medial preoptic, and ventromedial nuclei of the hypothalamus. Social cues are integrated into the circuit through the amygdala. The posterodorsal part of the medial amygdala (MeApd) is involved in sexually dimorphic social and reproductive behaviors, and sends projections to hypothalamic neuroendocrine regions. GABA from the MeApd appears to facilitate social behaviors, while glutamate may play the opposite role. To test these hypotheses, adult female vesicular GABA transporter (VGAT)-Cre and vesicular glutamate transporter 2 (VGluT2)-Cre mice were transfected with halorhodopsin (eNpHR)-expressing or channelrhodopsin-expressing adeno-associated viruses (AAVs), respectively, in...

Ana Rita Nunes, Michael Gliksberg, Susana A. M. Varela, Magda Teles, Einav Wircer, et al. (see pages [8742–8760][1]) Oxytocin has important roles in social behaviors, such as pair-bonding, parenting, social affiliation, and aggression, in birds and mammals. It also regulates stress responses,

The mechanisms underlying accumulation of Alzheimer's disease (AD)-related tau pathology outside of the medial temporal lobe (MTL) in older adults are unknown but crucial to understanding cognitive decline. A growing body of evidence from human and animal studies strongly implicates neural connectivity in the propagation of tau in humans, but the pathways of neocortical tau spread and its consequences for cognitive function are not well understood. Using resting state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and tau PET imaging from a sample of 97 male and female cognitively normal older adults, we examined MTL structures involved in medial parietal tau accumulation and associations with memory function. Functional connectivity between hippocampus (HC) and retrosplenial cortex (RsC), a key region of the medial parietal lobe, was associated with tau in medial parietal lobe. By contrast, connectivity between entorhinal cortex (EC) and RsC did not correlate with medial parietal lobe tau. Further, greater ...

We propose a model of the main rhythms in the hippocampal CA1 field: theta rhythm, slow, middle, and fast gamma rhythms, and ripples oscillations. We have based this on data obtained from animals behaving freely. We have considered the modes of neuronal discharges and the occurrence of local field potential (LFP) oscillations in the theta and non-theta states at different inputs from the CA3 field, the medial entorhinal cortex, and the medial septum. In our work, we tried to reproduce the main experimental phenomena about rhythms in the CA1 field: the coupling of neurons to the phase of rhythms, cross-rhythm phase-phase and phase-amplitude coupling. Using computational experiments, we have proved the hypothesis that the descending phase of the theta rhythm in the CA1 field is formed by the input from the CA3 field via the Shaffer collaterals, and the ascending phase of the theta rhythm is formed by the inhibitory postsynaptic potentials from CCK basket cells. The slow gamma rhythm is coupled to the descend...

Post-encoding coordinated reactivation of memory traces distributed throughout interconnected brain regions is thought to be critical for consolidation of memories. However, little is known about the role of neural circuit pathways during post-learning periods for consolidation of memories. To investigate this question, we optogenetically silenced the inputs from both auditory cortex (AuV/TeA) and thalamus (MGm/PIN) in the lateral amygdala (LA) for 15 min immediately following auditory fear conditioning (FC) and examined its effect on fear memory formation in mice of both sexes. Optogenetic inhibition of both inputs disrupted long-term fear memory formation tested 24 h after FC. This effect was specific such that the same inhibition did not affect short-term memory and context-dependent memory. Moreover, long-term memory was intact if the inputs were inhibited at much later time points after FC (3 h or 1 d after FC), indicating that optical inhibition for 15 min itself does not produce any non-specific del...

Persistent anion conductances through GABAA receptors (GABAAR) are important modulators of neuronal excitability. However, it is currently unknown how the amplitudes of these currents vary amongst different cell types in the human neocortex, particularly amongst diverse GABAergic interneurons. We have recorded 101 interneurons in and near layer 1 from cortical tissue surgically resected from both male and female patients, visualised 84 of them and measured tonic GABAAR currents in 48 cells with an intracellular [Cl-] of 65 mM and in the presence of 5 µM GABA. We compare these tonic currents amongst five groups of interneurons divided by firing properties and four types of interneuron defined by axonal distributions; rosehip, neurogliaform, stalked-bouton, layers 2-3 innervating and a pool of other cells. Interestingly, the rosehip cell, a type of interneuron only described thus far in human tissue, and layers 2-3 innervating cells exhibit larger tonic currents than other layer 1 interneurons, such as neuro...

Persistent anion conductances through GABAA receptors (GABAAR) are important modulators of neuronal excitability. However, it is currently unknown how the amplitudes of these currents vary amongst different cell types in the human neocortex, particularly amongst diverse GABAergic interneurons. We have recorded 101 interneurons in and near layer 1 from cortical tissue surgically resected from both male and female patients, visualised 84 of them and measured tonic GABAAR currents in 48 cells with an intracellular [Cl-] of 65 mM and in the presence of 5 µM GABA. We compare these tonic currents amongst five groups of interneurons divided by firing properties and four types of interneuron defined by axonal distributions; rosehip, neurogliaform, stalked-bouton, layers 2-3 innervating and a pool of other cells. Interestingly, the rosehip cell, a type of interneuron only described thus far in human tissue, and layers 2-3 innervating cells exhibit larger tonic currents than other layer 1 interneurons, such as neuro...

Neural oscillations can couple networks of brain regions, especially at lower frequencies. The nasal respiratory rhythm, which elicits robust olfactory bulb oscillations, has been linked to episodic memory, locomotion, and exploration, along with widespread oscillatory coherence. The piriform cortex is implicated in propagating the olfactory-bulb-driven respiratory rhythm, but this has not been tested explicitly in the context of both hippocampal theta and nasal respiratory rhythm during exploratory behaviors. We investigated systemwide interactions during foraging behavior, which engages respiratory and theta rhythms. Local field potentials from the olfactory bulb, piriform cortex, dentate gyrus, and CA1 of hippocampus, primary visual cortex, and nasal respiration were recorded simultaneously from male rats. We compared interactions among these areas while rats foraged using either visual or olfactory spatial cues. We found high coherence during foraging compared with home cage activity in two frequency b...

It has been proposed that the auditory cortex in the deaf humans might undergo task-specific reorganization. However, evidence remains scarce as previous experiments used only two very specific tasks (temporal processing and face perception) in visual modality. Here, congenitally deaf/hard of hearing and hearing women and men were enrolled in an fMRI experiment as we sought to fill this evidence gap in two ways. First, we compared activation evoked by a temporal processing task performed in two different modalities: visual and tactile. Second, we contrasted this task with a perceptually similar task that focuses on the spatial dimension. Additional control conditions consisted of passive stimulus observation. In line with the task-specificity hypothesis, the auditory cortex in the deaf was activated by temporal processing in both visual and tactile modalities. This effect was selective for temporal processing relative to spatial discrimination. However, spatial processing also led to significant auditory ...