Publication Date:
2012-06-09
Description:
Radial glial cells are the primary neural progenitor cells in the developing neocortex. Consecutive asymmetric divisions of individual radial glial progenitor cells produce a number of sister excitatory neurons that migrate along the elongated radial glial fibre, resulting in the formation of ontogenetic columns. Moreover, sister excitatory neurons in ontogenetic columns preferentially develop specific chemical synapses with each other rather than with nearby non-siblings. Although these findings provide crucial insight into the emergence of functional columns in the neocortex, little is known about the basis of this lineage-dependent assembly of excitatory neuron microcircuits at single-cell resolution. Here we show that transient electrical coupling between radially aligned sister excitatory neurons regulates the subsequent formation of specific chemical synapses in the neocortex. Multiple-electrode whole-cell recordings showed that sister excitatory neurons preferentially form strong electrical coupling with each other rather than with adjacent non-sister excitatory neurons during early postnatal stages. This preferential coupling allows selective electrical communication between sister excitatory neurons, promoting their action potential generation and synchronous firing. Interestingly, although this electrical communication largely disappears before the appearance of chemical synapses, blockade of the electrical communication impairs the subsequent formation of specific chemical synapses between sister excitatory neurons in ontogenetic columns. These results suggest a strong link between lineage-dependent transient electrical coupling and the assembly of precise excitatory neuron microcircuits in the neocortex.〈br /〉〈br /〉〈a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3599787/" target="_blank"〉〈img src="https://static.pubmed.gov/portal/portal3rc.fcgi/4089621/img/3977009" border="0"〉〈/a〉 〈a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3599787/" target="_blank"〉This paper as free author manuscript - peer-reviewed and accepted for publication〈/a〉〈br /〉〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Yu, Yong-Chun -- He, Shuijin -- Chen, She -- Fu, Yinghui -- Brown, Keith N -- Yao, Xing-Hua -- Ma, Jian -- Gao, Kate P -- Sosinsky, Gina E -- Huang, Kun -- Shi, Song-Hai -- R01 DA024681/DA/NIDA NIH HHS/ -- R01 GM065937/GM/NIGMS NIH HHS/ -- R01 GM072881/GM/NIGMS NIH HHS/ -- R01DA024681/DA/NIDA NIH HHS/ -- R01GM065947/GM/NIGMS NIH HHS/ -- R21 MH083624/MH/NIMH NIH HHS/ -- R21MH083624/MH/NIMH NIH HHS/ -- R21NS072483/NS/NINDS NIH HHS/ -- England -- Nature. 2012 May 2;486(7401):113-7. doi: 10.1038/nature10958.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Institute of Neurobiology, State Key Laboratory of Medical Neurobiology, Fudan University, 138 Yixueyuan Road, Shanghai 200032, China. ycyu@fudan.edu.cn〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22678291" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉
Keywords:
Action Potentials/drug effects
;
Animals
;
Animals, Newborn
;
*Cell Lineage
;
*Electric Conductivity
;
Electrical Synapses/metabolism/*physiology
;
Gap Junctions/drug effects/*metabolism
;
Meclofenamic Acid/pharmacology
;
Mice
;
Models, Neurological
;
Neocortex/*cytology
;
Neurons/*cytology/drug effects/*physiology
;
Synaptic Transmission
Print ISSN:
0028-0836
Electronic ISSN:
1476-4687
Topics:
Biology
,
Chemistry and Pharmacology
,
Medicine
,
Natural Sciences in General
,
Physics
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