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Monochromatic Blue Light Activates Suprachiasmatic Nucleus Neuronal Activity and Promotes Arousal in Mice Under Sevoflurane Anesthesia. Front. Neural Circuits (IF 3.156) Pub Date : 2020-08-18 Daiqiang Liu,Jiayan Li,Jiayi Wu,Jiaqi Dai,Xinfeng Chen,Yujie Huang,Shuang Zhang,Bo Tian,Wei Mei
Background: Monochromatic blue light (MBL), with a wavelength between 400-490 nm, can regulate non-image-forming (NIF) functions of light in the central nervous system. The suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) in the brain is involved in the arousal-promoting response to blue light in mice. Animal and human studies showed that the responsiveness of the brain to visual stimuli is partly preserved under general
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General Distributed Neural Control and Sensory Adaptation for Self-Organized Locomotion and Fast Adaptation to Damage of Walking Robots. Front. Neural Circuits (IF 3.156) Pub Date : 2020-08-17 Aitor Miguel-Blanco,Poramate Manoonpong
Walking animals such as invertebrates can effectively perform self-organized and robust locomotion. They can also quickly adapt their gait to deal with injury or damage. Such a complex achievement is mainly performed via coordination between the legs, commonly known as interlimb coordination. Several components underlying the interlimb coordination process (like distributed neural control circuits
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Editorial: Integrative Brain Function Down Under. Front. Neural Circuits (IF 3.156) Pub Date : 2020-08-14 Pankaj Sah,Greg J Stuart,Gary F Egan
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Interactions Between Motor Thalamic Field Potentials and Single-Unit Spiking Are Correlated With Behavior in Rats. Front. Neural Circuits (IF 3.156) Pub Date : 2020-08-13 Matt Gaidica,Amy Hurst,Christopher Cyr,Daniel K Leventhal
Field potential (FP) oscillations are believed to coordinate brain activity over large spatiotemporal scales, with specific features (e.g., phase and power) in discrete frequency bands correlated with motor output. Furthermore, complex correlations between oscillations in distinct frequency bands (phase-amplitude, amplitude-amplitude, and phase-phase coupling) are commonly observed. However, the mechanisms
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In silico Hierarchical Clustering of Neuronal Populations in the Rat Ventral Tegmental Area Based on Extracellular Electrophysiological Properties. Front. Neural Circuits (IF 3.156) Pub Date : 2020-08-13 Mathieu Di Miceli,Zoé Husson,Philippe Ruel,Sophie Layé,Daniela Cota,Xavier Fioramonti,Clémentine Bosch-Bouju,Benjamin Gronier
The ventral tegmental area (VTA) is a heterogeneous brain region, containing different neuronal populations. During in vivo recordings, electrophysiological characteristics are classically used to distinguish the different populations. However, the VTA is also considered as a region harboring neurons with heterogeneous properties. In the present study, we aimed to classify VTA neurons using in silico
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New Optical Tools to Study Neural Circuit Assembly in the Retina. Front. Neural Circuits (IF 3.156) Pub Date : 2020-08-06 Aline Giselle Rangel Olguin,Pierre-Luc Rochon,Arjun Krishnaswamy
During development, neurons navigate a tangled thicket of thousands of axons and dendrites to synapse with just a few specific targets. This phenomenon termed wiring specificity, is critical to the assembly of neural circuits and the way neurons manage this feat is only now becoming clear. Recent studies in the mouse retina are shedding new insight into this process. They show that specific wiring
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An Attempt at a Unified Theory of the Neocortical Microcircuit in Sensory Cortex. Front. Neural Circuits (IF 3.156) Pub Date : 2020-07-28 Max Bennett
The neocortex performs a wide range of functions, including working memory, sensory perception, and motor planning. Despite this diversity in function, evidence suggests that the neocortex is made up of repeating subunits ("macrocolumns"), each of which is largely identical in circuitry. As such, the specific computations performed by these macrocolumns are of great interest to neuroscientists and
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A Simple and Efficient Method for Visualizing Individual Cells in vivo by Cre-Mediated Single-Cell Labeling by Electroporation (CREMSCLE). Front. Neural Circuits (IF 3.156) Pub Date : 2020-07-28 Anne Schohl,Zahraa Chorghay,Edward S Ruthazer
Efficient methods for visualizing cell morphology in the intact animal are of great benefit to the study of structural development in the nervous system. Quantitative analysis of the complex arborization patterns of brain cells informs cell-type classification, dissection of neuronal circuit wiring, and the elucidation of growth and plasticity mechanisms. Time-lapse single-cell morphological analysis
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Commentary: Clinical Improvements in Comorbid Gambling/Cocaine Use Disorder (GD/CUD) Patients Undergoing Repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (rTMS). Front. Neural Circuits (IF 3.156) Pub Date : 2020-07-24 Hang Ou,Yi Zhang,Weiqi He
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Auditory Long-Range Parvalbumin Cortico-Striatal Neurons. Front. Neural Circuits (IF 3.156) Pub Date : 2020-07-23 Alice Bertero,Hector Zurita,Marc Normandin,Alfonso Junior Apicella
Previous studies have shown that cortico-striatal pathways link auditory signals to action-selection and reward-learning behavior through excitatory projections. Only recently it has been demonstrated that long-range GABAergic cortico-striatal somatostatin-expressing neurons in the auditory cortex project to the dorsal striatum, and functionally inhibit the main projecting neuronal population, the
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Cholinergic Projections From the Pedunculopontine Tegmental Nucleus Contact Excitatory and Inhibitory Neurons in the Inferior Colliculus. Front. Neural Circuits (IF 3.156) Pub Date : 2020-07-16 William A Noftz,Nichole L Beebe,Jeffrey G Mellott,Brett R Schofield
The inferior colliculus processes nearly all ascending auditory information. Most collicular cells respond to sound, and for a majority of these cells, the responses can be modulated by acetylcholine (ACh). The cholinergic effects are varied and, for the most part, the underlying mechanisms are unknown. The major source of cholinergic input to the inferior colliculus is the pedunculopontine tegmental
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Automated Curation of CNMF-E-Extracted ROI Spatial Footprints and Calcium Traces Using Open-Source AutoML Tools. Front. Neural Circuits (IF 3.156) Pub Date : 2020-07-15 Lina M Tran,Andrew J Mocle,Adam I Ramsaran,Alexander D Jacob,Paul W Frankland,Sheena A Josselyn
In vivo 1-photon (1p) calcium imaging is an increasingly prevalent method in behavioral neuroscience. Numerous analysis pipelines have been developed to improve the reliability and scalability of pre-processing and ROI extraction for these large calcium imaging datasets. Despite these advancements in pre-processing methods, manual curation of the extracted spatial footprints and calcium traces of neurons
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Challenges for Therapeutic Applications of Opsin-Based Optogenetic Tools in Humans. Front. Neural Circuits (IF 3.156) Pub Date : 2020-07-15 Yi Shen,Robert E Campbell,Daniel C Côté,Marie-Eve Paquet
As the technological hurdles are overcome and optogenetic techniques advance to have more control over neurons, therapies based on these approaches will begin to emerge in the clinic. Here, we consider the technical challenges surrounding the transition of this breakthrough technology from an investigative tool to a true therapeutic avenue. The emerging strategies and remaining tasks surrounding genetically
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Mesoscopic Mapping of Stimulus-Selective Response Plasticity in the Visual Pathways Modulated by the Cholinergic System. Front. Neural Circuits (IF 3.156) Pub Date : 2020-07-03 Guillaume Laliberté,Rahmeh Othman,Elvire Vaucher
The cholinergic potentiation of visual conditioning enhances visual acuity and discrimination of the trained stimulus. To determine if this also induces long-term plastic changes on cortical maps and connectivity in the visual cortex and higher associative areas, mesoscopic calcium imaging was performed in head-fixed awake GCaMP6s adult mice before and after conditioning. The conditioned stimulus (0
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Optimal Pipette Resistance, Seal Resistance, and Zero-Current Membrane Potential for Loose Patch or Breakthrough Whole-Cell Recording in vivo. Front. Neural Circuits (IF 3.156) Pub Date : 2020-06-30 Linqing Yan,Qi Fang,Xingui Zhang,Bowan Huang
In vivo loose patch and breakthrough whole-cell recordings are useful tools for investigating the intrinsic and synaptic properties of neurons. However, the correlation among pipette resistance, seal condition, and recording time is not thoroughly clear. Presently, we investigated the recording time of different pipette resistances and seal conditions in loose patch and breakthrough whole-cell recordings
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The Nucleus Accumbens: A Common Target in the Comorbidity of Depression and Addiction. Front. Neural Circuits (IF 3.156) Pub Date : 2020-06-30 Le Xu,Jun Nan,Yan Lan
The comorbidity of depression and addiction has become a serious public health issue, and the relationship between these two disorders and their potential mechanisms has attracted extensive attention. Numerous studies have suggested that depression and addiction share common mechanisms and anatomical pathways. The nucleus accumbens (NAc) has long been considered a key brain region for regulating many
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A Commentary on Gender Does Not Matter: Add-on Repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation Treatment for Female Methamphetamine Dependents. Front. Neural Circuits (IF 3.156) Pub Date : 2020-06-17 Yan Zeng,Hui Zheng,Weiqi He
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Electroacupuncture-Related Metabolic Brain Connectivity in Neuropathic Pain due to Brachial Plexus Avulsion Injury in Rats. Front. Neural Circuits (IF 3.156) Pub Date : 2020-06-17 Ao-Lin Hou,Mou-Xiong Zheng,Xu-Yun Hua,Bei-Bei Huo,Jun Shen,Jian-Guang Xu
Objective: The present study aimed to investigate the analgesic effect of electroacupuncture (EA) in neuropathic pain due to brachial plexus avulsion injury (BPAI) and related changes in the metabolic brain connectivity. Methods: Neuropathic pain model due to BPAI was established in adult female Sprague-Dawley rats. EA stimulations (2/15 Hz, 30 min/day, 5-day intervention followed by 2-day rest in
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Comprehensive Imaging of Sensory-Evoked Activity of Entire Neurons Within the Awake Developing Brain Using Ultrafast AOD-Based Random-Access Two-Photon Microscopy. Front. Neural Circuits (IF 3.156) Pub Date : 2020-06-16 Kelly D R Sakaki,Kaspar Podgorski,Tristan A Dellazizzo Toth,Patrick Coleman,Kurt Haas
Determining how neurons transform synaptic input and encode information in action potential (AP) firing output is required for understanding dendritic integration, neural transforms and encoding. Limitations in the speed of imaging 3D volumes of brain encompassing complex dendritic arbors in vivo using conventional galvanometer mirror-based laser-scanning microscopy has hampered fully capturing fluorescent
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Broadband Entrainment of Striatal Low-Threshold Spike Interneurons. Front. Neural Circuits (IF 3.156) Pub Date : 2020-06-12 Juan C Morales,Matthew H Higgs,Soomin C Song,Charles J Wilson
Striatal interneurons and spiny projection (SP) neurons are differentially tuned to spectral components of their input. Previous studies showed that spike responses of somatostatin/NPY-expressing low threshold spike (LTS) interneurons have broad frequency tuning, setting these cells apart from other striatal GABAergic interneurons and SP neurons. We investigated the mechanism of LTS interneuron spiking
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Insights Into Spinal Dorsal Horn Circuit Function and Dysfunction Using Optical Approaches. Front. Neural Circuits (IF 3.156) Pub Date : 2020-06-12 Erika K Harding,Samuel Wanchi Fung,Robert P Bonin
Somatosensation encompasses a variety of essential modalities including touch, pressure, proprioception, temperature, pain, and itch. These peripheral sensations are crucial for all types of behaviors, ranging from social interaction to danger avoidance. Somatosensory information is transmitted from primary afferent fibers in the periphery into the central nervous system via the dorsal horn of the
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Neurophotonics Approaches for the Study of Pattern Separation. Front. Neural Circuits (IF 3.156) Pub Date : 2020-06-09 Cristian Morales,Juan Facundo Morici,Magdalena Miranda,Francisco Tomás Gallo,Pedro Bekinschtein,Noelia V Weisstaub
Successful memory involves not only remembering over time but also keeping memories distinct. Computational models suggest that pattern separation appears as a highly efficient process to discriminate between overlapping memories. Furthermore, lesion studies have shown that the dentate gyrus (DG) participates in pattern separation. However, these manipulations did not allow identifying the neuronal
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Common Principles in Functional Organization of VIP/Calretinin Cell-Driven Disinhibitory Circuits Across Cortical Areas. Front. Neural Circuits (IF 3.156) Pub Date : 2020-06-09 Alexandre Guet-McCreight,Frances K Skinner,Lisa Topolnik
In the brain, there is a vast diversity of different structures, circuitries, cell types, and cellular genetic expression profiles. While this large diversity can often occlude a clear understanding of how the brain works, careful analyses of analogous studies performed across different brain areas can hint at commonalities in neuronal organization. This in turn can yield a fundamental understanding
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Spatial Updating Depends on Gravity. Front. Neural Circuits (IF 3.156) Pub Date : 2020-06-05 Alexander Christoph Stahn,Martin Riemer,Thomas Wolbers,Anika Werner,Katharina Brauns,Stephane Besnard,Pierre Denise,Simone Kühn,Hanns-Christian Gunga
As we move through an environment the positions of surrounding objects relative to our body constantly change. Maintaining orientation requires spatial updating, the continuous monitoring of self-motion cues to update external locations. This ability critically depends on the integration of visual, proprioceptive, kinesthetic, and vestibular information. During weightlessness gravity no longer acts
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Commentary: Preservation of a remote fear memory requires new myelin formation. Front. Neural Circuits (IF 3.156) Pub Date : 2020-05-19 Yini Li,Haibo Shi
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A Modeling Study of the Emergence of Eye Position Gain Fields Modulating the Responses of Visual Neurons in the Brain. Front. Neural Circuits (IF 3.156) Pub Date : 2020-04-28 Daniel M Navarro,Hannah E Smithson,Simon M Stringer
The responses of many cortical neurons to visual stimuli are modulated by the position of the eye. This form of gain modulation by eye position does not change the retinotopic selectivity of the responses, but only changes the amplitude of the responses. Particularly in the case of cortical responses, this form of eye position gain modulation has been observed to be multiplicative. Multiplicative gain
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Stress-Related Neuronal Clusters in Sublenticular Extended Amygdala of Basal Forebrain Show Individual Differences of Positions. Front. Neural Circuits (IF 3.156) Pub Date : 2020-04-23 Munenori Kanemoto,Tomoya Nakamura,Masakiyo Sasahara,Hiroyuki Ichijo
To understand functional neuronal circuits for emotion in the basal forebrain, patterns of neuronal activation were examined in mice by immunohistochemistry of immediate-early gene products (Zif268/Egr1 and c-Fos). In all mice examined, clusters of 30–50 neurons expressing Zif268 were found on both sides in the area between the extended amygdala (EA) and globus pallidus (GP), generally designated as
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EZcalcium: Open-Source Toolbox for Analysis of Calcium Imaging Data. Front. Neural Circuits (IF 3.156) Pub Date : 2020-04-20 Daniel A Cantu,Bo Wang,Michael W Gongwer,Cynthia X He,Anubhuti Goel,Anand Suresh,Nazim Kourdougli,Erica D Arroyo,William Zeiger,Carlos Portera-Cailliau
Fluorescence calcium imaging using a range of microscopy approaches, such as two-photon excitation or head-mounted “miniscopes,” is one of the preferred methods to record neuronal activity and glial signals in various experimental settings, including acute brain slices, brain organoids, and behaving animals. Because changes in the fluorescence intensity of genetically encoded or chemical calcium indicators
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Optogenetic Manipulation of Postsynaptic cAMP Using a Novel Transgenic Mouse Line Enables Synaptic Plasticity and Enhances Depolarization Following Tetanic Stimulation in the Hippocampal Dentate Gyrus. Front. Neural Circuits (IF 3.156) Pub Date : 2020-04-17 Thomas T Luyben,Jayant Rai,Hang Li,John Georgiou,Ariel Avila,Mei Zhen,Graham L Collingridge,Takashi Tominaga,Kenichi Okamoto
cAMP is a positive regulator tightly involved in certain types of synaptic plasticity and related memory functions. However, its spatiotemporal roles at the synaptic and neural circuit levels remain elusive. Using a combination of a cAMP optogenetics approach and voltage-sensitive dye (VSD) imaging with electrophysiological recording, we define a novel capacity of postsynaptic cAMP in enabling dentate
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Stimulus Contrast Information Modulates Sensorimotor Decision Making in Goldfish. Front. Neural Circuits (IF 3.156) Pub Date : 2020-04-15 Santiago Otero Coronel,Nicolás Martorell,Martín Beron de Astrada,Violeta Medan
Animal survival relies on environmental information gathered by their sensory systems. We found that contrast information of a looming stimulus biases the type of defensive behavior that goldfish (Carassius auratus) perform. Low-contrast looms only evoke subtle alarm reactions whose probability is independent of contrast. As looming contrast increases, the probability of eliciting a fast escape maneuver
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Ultradian Secretion of Growth Hormone in Mice: Linking Physiology With Changes in Synapse Parameters Using Super-Resolution Microscopy. Front. Neural Circuits (IF 3.156) Pub Date : 2020-04-14 Klaudia Bednarz,Walaa Alshafie,Sarah Aufmkolk,Théotime Desserteaux,Pratap Singh Markam,Kai-Florian Storch,Thomas Stroh
Neuroendocrine circuits are orchestrated by the pituitary gland in response to hypothalamic hormone-releasing and inhibiting factors to generate an ultradian and/or circadian rhythm of hormone secretion. However, mechanisms that govern this rhythmicity are not fully understood. It has been shown that synaptic transmission in the rodent hypothalamus undergoes cyclical changes in parallel with rhythmic
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The Photoconvertible Fluorescent Probe, CaMPARI, Labels Active Neurons in Freely-Moving Intact Adult Fruit Flies. Front. Neural Circuits (IF 3.156) Pub Date : 2020-04-14 Katie A Edwards,Michael B Hoppa,Giovanni Bosco
Linking neural circuitry to behavior by mapping active neurons in vivo is a challenge. Both genetically encoded calcium indicators (GECIs) and intermediate early genes (IEGs) have been used to pinpoint active neurons during a stimulus or behavior but have drawbacks such as limiting the movement of the organism, requiring a priori knowledge of the active region or having poor temporal resolution. Calcium-modulated
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A Probabilistic Framework for Decoding Behavior From in vivo Calcium Imaging Data. Front. Neural Circuits (IF 3.156) Pub Date : 2020-04-06 Guillaume Etter,Frederic Manseau,Sylvain Williams
Understanding the role of neuronal activity in cognition and behavior is a key question in neuroscience. Previously, in vivo studies have typically inferred behavior from electrophysiological data using probabilistic approaches including Bayesian decoding. While providing useful information on the role of neuronal subcircuits, electrophysiological approaches are often limited in the maximum number
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Light Up the Brain: The Application of Optogenetics in Cell-Type Specific Dissection of Mouse Brain Circuits. Front. Neural Circuits (IF 3.156) Pub Date : 2020-03-31 Candice Lee,Andreanne Lavoie,Jiashu Liu,Simon X Chen,Bao-Hua Liu
The exquisite intricacies of neural circuits are fundamental to an animal’s diverse and complex repertoire of sensory and motor functions. The ability to precisely map neural circuits and to selectively manipulate neural activity is critical to understanding brain function and has, therefore been a long-standing goal for neuroscientists. The recent development of optogenetic tools, combined with transgenic
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GABAergic Input From the Basal Forebrain Promotes the Survival of Adult-Born Neurons in the Mouse Olfactory Bulb. Front. Neural Circuits (IF 3.156) Pub Date : 2020-03-31 Elizabeth Hanson,Jessica Swanson,Benjamin R Arenkiel
A unique feature of the olfactory system is the continuous generation and integration of new neurons throughout adulthood. Adult-born neuron survival and integration is dependent on activity and sensory experience, which is largely mediated by early synaptic inputs that adult-born neurons receive upon entering the olfactory bulb (OB). As in early postnatal development, the first synaptic inputs onto
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Nonspecific Expression in Limited Excitatory Cell Populations in Interneuron-Targeting Cre-driver Lines Can Have Large Functional Effects. Front. Neural Circuits (IF 3.156) Pub Date : 2020-03-30 Daniel Müller-Komorowska,Thoralf Opitz,Shehabeldin Elzoheiry,Michaela Schweizer,Eleonora Ambrad Giovannetti,Heinz Beck
Transgenic Cre-recombinase expressing mouse lines are widely used to express fluorescent proteins and opto-/chemogenetic actuators, making them a cornerstone of modern neuroscience. The investigation of interneurons in particular has benefitted from the ability to genetically target specific cell types. However, the specificity of some Cre driver lines has been called into question. Here, we show that
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Plasticity of Persistent Activity and Its Constraints. Front. Neural Circuits (IF 3.156) Pub Date : 2020-03-26 Sihai Li,Xin Zhou,Christos Constantinidis,Xue-Lian Qi
Stimulus information is maintained in working memory by action potentials that persist after the stimulus is no longer physically present. The prefrontal cortex is a critical brain area that maintains such persistent activity due to an intrinsic network with unique synaptic connectivity, NMDA receptors, and interneuron types. Persistent activity can be highly plastic depending on task demands but it
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Contribution of 5-HT2 Receptors to the Control of the Spinal Locomotor System in Intact Rats. Front. Neural Circuits (IF 3.156) Pub Date : 2020-03-24 Henryk Majczyński,Anna M Cabaj,Larry M Jordan,Urszula Sławińska
Applying serotonergic (5-HT) agonists or grafting of fetal serotonergic cells into the spinal cord improves locomotion after spinal cord injury. Little is known about the role of 5-HT receptors in the control of voluntary locomotion, so we administered inverse agonists of 5-HT2 (Cyproheptadine; Cypr), 5-HT2A neutral antagonist (Volinanserin; Volin), 5-HT2C neutral antagonist (SB 242084), and 5-HT2B/2C
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Cortical Microcircuit Mechanisms of Mismatch Negativity and Its Underlying Subcomponents. Front. Neural Circuits (IF 3.156) Pub Date : 2020-03-17 Jordan M Ross,Jordan P Hamm
In the neocortex, neuronal processing of sensory events is significantly influenced by context. For instance, responses in sensory cortices are suppressed to repetitive or redundant stimuli, a phenomenon termed “stimulus-specific adaptation” (SSA). However, in a context in which that same stimulus is novel, or deviates from expectations, neuronal responses are augmented. This augmentation is termed
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A Computational Theory for the Emergence of Grammatical Categories in Cortical Dynamics. Front. Neural Circuits (IF 3.156) Pub Date : 2020-03-16 Dario Dematties,Silvio Rizzi,George K Thiruvathukal,Mauricio David Pérez,Alejandro Wainselboim,B Silvano Zanutto
A general agreement in psycholinguistics claims that syntax and meaning are unified precisely and very quickly during online sentence processing. Although several theories have advanced arguments regarding the neurocomputational bases of this phenomenon, we argue that these theories could potentially benefit by including neurophysiological data concerning cortical dynamics constraints in brain tissue
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Spinal Interneurons With Dual Axon Projections to Knee-Extensor and Hip-Extensor Motor Pools. Front. Neural Circuits (IF 3.156) Pub Date : 2020-03-12 Khuong H Nguyen,Thomas E Scheurich,Tingting Gu,Ari Berkowitz
The central nervous system (CNS) may simplify control of limb movements by activating certain combinations of muscles together, i.e., muscle synergies. Little is known, however, about the spinal cord interneurons that activate muscle synergies by exciting sets of motoneurons for different muscles. The turtle spinal cord, even without brain inputs and movement-related sensory feedback, can generate
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Connection Input Mapping and 3D Reconstruction of the Brainstem and Spinal Cord Projections to the CSF-Contacting Nucleus. Front. Neural Circuits (IF 3.156) Pub Date : 2020-03-10 Si-Yuan Song,Ying Li,Xiao-Meng Zhai,Yue-Hao Li,Cheng-Yi Bao,Cheng-Jing Shan,Jia Hong,Jun-Li Cao,Li-Cai Zhang
Objective To investigate whether the CSF-contacting nucleus receives brainstem and spinal cord projections and to understand the functional significance of these connections. Methods The retrograde tracer cholera toxin B subunit (CB) was injected into the CSF-contacting nucleus in Sprague-Dawley rats according the previously reported stereotaxic coordinates. After 7–10 days, these rats were perfused
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Off-Target Influences of Arch-Mediated Axon Terminal Inhibition on Network Activity and Behavior. Front. Neural Circuits (IF 3.156) Pub Date : 2020-03-09 Christopher K Lafferty,Jonathan P Britt
Archaerhodopsin (ArchT)-mediated photoinhibition of axon terminals is commonly used to test the involvement of specific long-range neural projections in behavior. Although sustained activation of this opsin in axon terminals has the unintended consequence of enhancing spontaneous vesicle release, it is unclear whether this desynchronized signaling is consequential for ArchT’s behavioral effects. Here
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Testing Navigation in Real Space: Contributions to Understanding the Physiology and Pathology of Human Navigation Control. Front. Neural Circuits (IF 3.156) Pub Date : 2020-03-06 Florian Schöberl,Andreas Zwergal,Thomas Brandt
Successful navigation relies on the flexible and appropriate use of metric representations of space or topological knowledge of the environment. Spatial dimensions (2D vs. 3D), spatial scales (vista-scale vs. large-scale environments) and the abundance of visual landmarks critically affect navigation performance and behavior in healthy human subjects. Virtual reality (VR)-based navigation paradigms
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Illuminating Relationships Between the Pre- and Post-synapse. Front. Neural Circuits (IF 3.156) Pub Date : 2020-03-06 Thomas M Sanderson,John Georgiou,Graham L Collingridge
Excitatory synapses in the mammalian cortex are highly diverse, both in terms of their structure and function. However, relationships between synaptic features indicate they are highly coordinated entities. Imaging techniques, that enable physiology at the resolution of individual synapses to be investigated, have allowed the presynaptic activity level of the synapse to be related to postsynaptic function
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Semaphorin-3A Promotes Degradation of Fragile X Mental Retardation Protein in Growth Cones via the Ubiquitin-Proteasome Pathway. Front. Neural Circuits (IF 3.156) Pub Date : 2020-02-28 Masaru Takabatake,Yoshio Goshima,Yukio Sasaki
Fragile X mental retardation protein (FMRP) is an RNA-binding protein that regulates local translation in dendrites and spines for synaptic plasticity. In axons, FMRP is implicated in axonal extension and axon guidance. We previously demonstrated the involvement of FMRP in growth cone collapse via a translation-dependent response to Semaphorin-3A (Sema3A), a repulsive axon guidance factor. In the case
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Fictive Scratching Patterns in Brain Cortex-Ablated, Midcollicular Decerebrate, and Spinal Cats. Front. Neural Circuits (IF 3.156) Pub Date : 2020-02-27 Irene Guadalupe Aguilar Garcia,Judith Marcela Dueñas-Jiménez,Luis Castillo,Laura Paulina Osuna-Carrasco,Braniff De La Torre Valdovinos,Rolando Castañeda-Arellano,Jose Roberto López-Ruiz,Carmen Toro-Castillo,Mario Treviño,Gerardo Mendizabal-Ruiz,Sergio Horacio Duenas-Jimenez
Background: The spinal cord's central pattern generators (CPGs) have been explained by the symmetrical half-center hypothesis, the bursts generator, computational models, and more recently by connectome circuits. Asymmetrical models, at odds with the half-center paradigm, are composed of extensor and flexor CPG modules. Other models include not only flexor and extensor motoneurons but also motoneuron
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Anatomy and Connectivity of the Torus Longitudinalis of the Adult Zebrafish. Front. Neural Circuits (IF 3.156) Pub Date : 2020-02-25 Mónica Folgueira,Selva Riva-Mendoza,Noelia Ferreño-Galmán,Antonio Castro,Isaac H Bianco,Ramón Anadón,Julián Yáñez
This study describes the cytoarchitecture of the torus longitudinalis (TL) in adult zebrafish by using light and electron microscopy, as well as its main connections as revealed by DiI tract tracing. In addition, by using high resolution confocal imaging followed by digital tracing, we describe the morphology of tectal pyramidal cells (type I cells) that are GFP positive in the transgenic line Tg(1
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Cell-Type-Specific Whole-Brain Direct Inputs to the Anterior and Posterior Piriform Cortex. Front. Neural Circuits (IF 3.156) Pub Date : 2020-02-07 Li Wang,Zhijian Zhang,Jiacheng Chen,Anne Manyande,Rafi Haddad,Qing Liu,Fuqiang Xu
The piriform cortex (PC) is a key brain area involved in both processing and coding of olfactory information. It is implicated in various brain disorders, such as epilepsy, Alzheimer's disease, and autism. The PC consists of the anterior (APC) and posterior (PPC) parts, which are different anatomically and functionally. However, the direct input networks to specific neuronal populations within the
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Using Neural Circuit Interrogation in Rodents to Unravel Human Speech Decoding. Front. Neural Circuits (IF 3.156) Pub Date : 2020-01-30 Demetrios Neophytou,Hysell V Oviedo
The neural circuits responsible for social communication are among the least understood in the brain. Human studies have made great progress in advancing our understanding of the global computations required for processing speech, and animal models offer the opportunity to discover evolutionarily conserved mechanisms for decoding these signals. In this review article, we describe some of the most well-established
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A Step-by-Step Protocol for Optogenetic Kindling. Front. Neural Circuits (IF 3.156) Pub Date : 2020-01-29 Elvis Cela,P Jesper Sjöström
Electrical kindling, repeated brain stimulation eventually resulting in seizures, is widely used as an animal model of epileptogenesis and epilepsy. However, the stimulation electrode used for electric kindling targets unknown neuronal populations and may introduce tissue damage and inflammation. Optogenetics can be used to circumvent these shortcomings by permitting millisecond control of activity
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Neural Correlates of Learning Pure Tones or Natural Sounds in the Auditory Cortex. Front. Neural Circuits (IF 3.156) Pub Date : 2020-01-28 Ido Maor,Ravid Shwartz-Ziv,Libi Feigin,Yishai Elyada,Haim Sompolinsky,Adi Mizrahi
Associative learning of pure tones is known to cause tonotopic map expansion in the auditory cortex (ACx), but the function this plasticity sub-serves is unclear. We developed an automated training platform called the "Educage," which was used to train mice on a go/no-go auditory discrimination task to their perceptual limits, for difficult discriminations among pure tones or natural sounds. Spiking
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Structural Neural Connectivity Analysis in Zebrafish With Restricted Anterograde Transneuronal Viral Labeling and Quantitative Brain Mapping. Front. Neural Circuits (IF 3.156) Pub Date : 2020-01-23 Manxiu Ma,Stanislav Kler,Y Albert Pan
The unique combination of small size, translucency, and powerful genetic tools makes larval zebrafish a uniquely useful vertebrate system to investigate normal and pathological brain structure and function. While functional connectivity can now be assessed by optical imaging (via fluorescent calcium or voltage reporters) at the whole-brain scale, it remains challenging to systematically determine structural
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Facilitation of Crossmodal Integration During Emotional Prediction in Methamphetamine Dependents. Front. Neural Circuits (IF 3.156) Pub Date : 2020-01-23 Zhao Zhang,Weiqi He,Yuchen Li,Mingming Zhang,Wenbo Luo
Methamphetamine (meth) can greatly damage the prefrontal cortex of the brain and trigger dysfunction of the cognitive control loop, which triggers not only drug dependence but also emotional disorders. The imbalance between the cognitive and emotional systems will lead to crossmodal emotional deficits. Until now, the negative impact of meth dependence on crossmodal emotional processing has not received
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Editorial: Neuromodulatory Control of Spinal Function in Health and Disease. Front. Neural Circuits (IF 3.156) Pub Date : 2020-01-22 Brian R Noga,Shawn Hochman,Hans Hultborn
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Editorial: Balancing Act: Structural-Functional Circuit Disruptions and Compensations in Developing and Aging Brain Disorders. Front. Neural Circuits (IF 3.156) Pub Date : 2020-01-15 Lijun Bai,Tuo Zhang,Xi-Nian Zuo,Mingzhou Ding
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Inhibitory Network Bistability Explains Increased Interneuronal Activity Prior to Seizure Onset. Front. Neural Circuits (IF 3.156) Pub Date : 2020-01-14 Scott Rich,Homeira Moradi Chameh,Marjan Rafiee,Katie Ferguson,Frances K Skinner,Taufik A Valiante
Recent experimental literature has revealed that GABAergic interneurons exhibit increased activity prior to seizure onset, alongside additional evidence that such activity is synchronous and may arise abruptly. These findings have led some to hypothesize that this interneuronal activity may serve a causal role in driving the sudden change in brain activity that heralds seizure onset. However, the mechanisms
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Multiplex Neural Circuit Tracing With G-Deleted Rabies Viral Vectors. Front. Neural Circuits (IF 3.156) Pub Date : 2020-01-10 Toshiaki Suzuki,Nao Morimoto,Akinori Akaike,Fumitaka Osakada
Neural circuits interconnect to organize large-scale networks that generate perception, cognition, memory, and behavior. Information in the nervous system is processed both through parallel, independent circuits and through intermixing circuits. Analyzing the interaction between circuits is particularly indispensable for elucidating how the brain functions. Monosynaptic circuit tracing with glycoprotein
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Laminar Organization of FM Direction Selectivity in the Primary Auditory Cortex of the Free-Tailed Bat. Front. Neural Circuits (IF 3.156) Pub Date : 2019-11-27 Silvio Macias,Kushal Bakshi,Michael Smotherman
We studied the columnar and layer-specific response properties of neurons in the primary auditory cortex (A1) of six (four females, two males) anesthetized free-tailed bats, Tadarida brasiliensis, in response to pure tones and down and upward frequency modulated (FM; 50 kHz bandwidth) sweeps. In addition, we calculated current source density (CSD) to test whether lateral intracortical projections facilitate
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Optogenetic/Chemogenetic Activation of GABAergic Neurons in the Ventral Tegmental Area Facilitates General Anesthesia via Projections to the Lateral Hypothalamus in Mice. Front. Neural Circuits (IF 3.156) Pub Date : 2019-11-19 Lu Yin,Long Li,Jiao Deng,Dan Wang,YongXin Guo,XinXin Zhang,HuiMing Li,ShiYi Zhao,HaiXing Zhong,HaiLong Dong
The ventral tegmental area (VTA) reportedly regulates sleep and wakefulness through communication with the lateral hypothalamus (LH). It has also been suggested that adequate anesthesia produced by administration of chloral hydrate, ketamine, or halothane significantly reduces the GABAergic neuronal firing rate within the VTA. However, the exact effects on GABAergic neurons in the VTA and the mechanisms
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