MAB354 Sigma-AldrichAnti-Somatostatin Antibody, clone YC7

Oxytocin is important for social interactions and maternal behaviour. However, little is known about when, where and how oxytocin modulates neural circuits to improve social cognition. Here we show how oxytocin enables pup retrieval behaviour in female mice by enhancing auditory cortical pup call responses. Retrieval behaviour required the left but not right auditory cortex, was accelerated by oxytocin in the left auditory cortex, and oxytocin receptors were preferentially expressed in the left auditory cortex. Neural responses to pup calls were lateralized, with co-tuned and temporally precise excitatory and inhibitory responses in the left cortex of maternal but not pup-naive adults. Finally, pairing calls with oxytocin enhanced responses by balancing the magnitude and timing of inhibition with excitation. Our results describe fundamental synaptic mechanisms by which oxytocin increases the salience of acoustic social stimuli. Furthermore, oxytocin-induced plasticity provides a biological basis for lateralization of auditory cortical processing.

Recently, we reported that the neocortex displays impaired growth after transient cerebral hypoxia-ischemia (HI) at preterm gestation that is unrelated to neuronal death but is associated with decreased dendritic arbor complexity of cortical projection neurons. We hypothesized that these morphological changes constituted part of a more widespread neuronal dysmaturation response to HI in the caudate nucleus (CN), which contributes to motor and cognitive disability in preterm survivors.Ex vivo magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), immunohistochemistry, and Golgi staining defined CN growth, cell death, proliferation, and dendritic maturation in preterm fetal sheep 4 weeks after HI. Patch-clamp recording was used to analyze glutamatergic synaptic currents in CN neurons.MRI-defined growth of the CN was reduced after ischemia compared to controls. However, no significant acute or delayed neuronal death was seen in the CN or white matter. Nor was there significant loss of calbindin-positive medium spiny projection neurons (MSNs) or CN interneurons expressing somatostatin, calretinin, parvalbumin, or tyrosine hydroxylase. Morphologically, ischemic MSNs showed a markedly immature dendritic arbor, with fewer dendritic branches, nodes, endings, and spines. The magnitude and kinetics of synaptic currents, and the relative contribution of glutamate receptor subtypes in the CN were significantly altered.The marked MSN dendritic and functional abnormalities after preterm cerebral HI, despite the marked resistance of immature CN neurons to cell death, are consistent with widespread susceptibility of projection neurons to HI-induced dysmaturation. These global disturbances in dendritic maturation and glutamatergic synaptic transmission suggest a new mechanism for long-term motor and behavioral disabilities in preterm survivors via widespread disruption of neuronal connectivity.

We revealed earlier that induction of ovarian cysts in gilts by dexamethasone phosphate disodium salt (DXM) administration from the follicular phase of the estrous cycle (EC) changed the cholinergic innervation of the gonad. In the present study, the innervation of porcine ovaries by vesicular acetylcholine transporter (VAChT)-, neuronal nitric oxide synthase (nNOS)-, vasoactive intestinal peptide (VIP)- and somatostatin (SOM)-immunoreactive (IR) fibres, after induction of cystic changes from the middle luteal phase of the EC, was determined. The cystic changes were induced by DXM injections from days 7 to 21 of the EC, and 11 days later, the ovaries were collected. In the cystic ovaries, VAChT-, nNOS- and SOM-IR fibres were found around cysts and small tertiary follicles; nNOS-IR and also VAChT-IR fibres were observed near secondary follicles and veins; and VAChT- and nNOS-IR fibres were not found around cortical arteries. The number of VIP-IR fibres increased near the cysts and within the ground plexus, while the number of VAChT-IR fibres decreased within the medullar part of this structure. Thus, our study showed changes in the cholinergic innervation pattern of the porcine cystic ovaries induced from the middle phase of the cycle and confirmed that cystic ovary innervation depends partly on the phase of the EC in which the induction of cysts was started.

Although considerable evidence suggests that the chemical synapse is a lynchpin underlying affective disorders, how molecular insults differentially affect specific synaptic connections remains poorly understood. For instance, Neurexin 1a and 2 (NRXN1 and NRXN2) and CNTNAP2 (also known as CASPR2), all members of the neurexin superfamily of transmembrane molecules, have been implicated in neuropsychiatric disorders. However, their loss leads to deficits that have been best characterized with regard to their effect on excitatory cells. Notably, other disease-associated genes such as BDNF and ERBB4 implicate specific interneuron synapses in psychiatric disorders. Consistent with this, cortical interneuron dysfunction has been linked to epilepsy, schizophrenia and autism. Using a microarray screen that focused upon synapse-associated molecules, we identified Cntnap4 (contactin associated protein-like 4, also known as Caspr4) as highly enriched in developing murine interneurons. In this study we show that Cntnap4 is localized presynaptically and its loss leads to a reduction in the output of cortical parvalbumin (PV)-positive GABAergic (γ-aminobutyric acid producing) basket cells. Paradoxically, the loss of Cntnap4 augments midbrain dopaminergic release in the nucleus accumbens. In Cntnap4 mutant mice, synaptic defects in these disease-relevant neuronal populations are mirrored by sensory-motor gating and grooming endophenotypes; these symptoms could be pharmacologically reversed, providing promise for therapeutic intervention in psychiatric disorders.

The progenitor zones of the embryonic mouse ventral telencephalon give rise to GABAergic and cholinergic neurons. We have shown previously that two LIM-homeodomain (LIM-HD) transcription factors, Lhx6 and Lhx8, that are downstream of Nkx2.1, are critical for the development of telencephalic GABAergic and cholinergic neurons. Here we investigate the role of Ldb1, a nuclear protein that binds directly to all LIM-HD factors, in the development of these ventral telencephalon derived neurons. We show that Ldb1 is expressed in the Nkx2.1 cell lineage during embryonic development and in mature neurons. Conditional deletion of Ldb1 causes defects in the expression of a series of genes in the ventral telencephalon and severe impairment in the tangential migration of cortical interneurons from the ventral telencephalon. Similar to the phenotypes observed in Lhx6 or Lhx8 mutant mice, the Ldb1 conditional mutants show a reduction in the number of both GABAergic and cholinergic neurons in the telencephalon. Furthermore, our analysis reveals defects in the development of the parvalbumin-positive neurons in the globus pallidus and striatum of the Ldb1 mutants. These results provide evidence that Ldb1 plays an essential role as a transcription co-regulator of Lhx6 and Lhx8 in the control of mammalian telencephalon development.

In both humans and rodents, decline in cognitive function is a hallmark of the aging process; the basis for this decrease has yet to be fully characterized. However, using aged rodent models, deficits in auditory processing have been associated with significant decreases in inhibitory signaling attributed to a loss of GABAergic interneurons. Not only are these interneurons crucial for pattern detection and other large-scale population dynamics, but they have also been linked to mechanisms mediating plasticity and learning, making them a prime candidate for study and modeling of modifications to cortical communication pathways in neurodegenerative diseases. Using the rat primary auditory cortex (A1) as a model, we probed the known markers of GABAergic interneurons with immunohistological methods, using antibodies against gamma aminobutyric acid (GABA), parvalbumin (PV), somatostatin (SOM), calretinin (CR), vasoactive intestinal peptide (VIP), choline acetyltransferase (ChAT), neuropeptide Y (NPY), and cholecystokinin (CCK) to document the changes observed in interneuron populations across the rat's lifespan. This analysis provided strong evidence that several but not all GABAergic neurons were affected by the aging process, showing most dramatic changes in expression of parvalbumin (PV) and somatostatin (SOM) expression. With this evidence, we show how understanding these trajectories of cell counts may be factored into a simple model to quantify changes in inhibitory signaling across the course of life, which may be applied as a framework for creating more advanced simulations of interneuronal implication in normal cerebral processing, normal aging, or pathological processes.

Acetylcholine regulates hormone secretion from the pancreatic islet and is thus crucial for glucose homeostasis. Little is known, however, about acetylcholine (cholinergic) signaling in the human islet. We recently reported that in the human islet, acetylcholine is primarily a paracrine signal released from α-cells rather than primarily a neural signal as in rodent islets. In this study, we demonstrate that the effects acetylcholine produces in the human islet are different and more complex than expected from studies conducted on cell lines and rodent islets. We found that endogenous acetylcholine not only stimulates the insulin-secreting β-cell via the muscarinic acetylcholine receptors M3 and M5, but also the somatostatin-secreting δ-cell via M1 receptors. Because somatostatin is a strong inhibitor of insulin secretion, we hypothesized that cholinergic input to the δ-cell indirectly regulates β-cell function. Indeed, when all muscarinic signaling was blocked, somatostatin secretion decreased and insulin secretion unexpectedly increased, suggesting a reduced inhibitory input to β-cells. Endogenous cholinergic signaling therefore provides direct stimulatory and indirect inhibitory input to β-cells to regulate insulin secretion from the human islet.

The medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) is implicated in aspects of executive function, that include the modulation of attentional and memory processes involved in goal selection. Food-seeking behavior has been shown to involve activation of the mPFC, both during the execution of strategies designed to obtain food and during the consumption of food itself. As these behaviors likely require differential engagement of the prefrontal cortex, we hypothesized that the pattern of neuronal activation would also be behavior dependent. In this study we describe, for the first time, the expression of Fos in different layers and cell types of the infralimbic/dorsal peduncular and prelimbic/anterior cingulate subdivisions of mouse mPFC following both the consumption of palatable food and following exploratory activity of the animal directed at obtaining food reward. While both manipulations led to increases of Fos expression in principal excitatory neurons relative to control, food-directed exploratory activity produced a significantly greater increase in Fos expression than observed in the food intake condition. Consequently, we hypothesized that mPFC interneuron activation would also be differentially engaged by these manipulations. Interestingly, Fos expression patterns differed substantially between treatments and interneuron subtype, illustrating how the differential engagement of subsets of mPFC interneurons depends on the behavioral state. In our experiments, both vasoactive intestinal peptide- and parvalbumin-expressing neurons showed enhanced Fos expression only during the food-dependent exploratory task and not during food intake. Conversely, elevations in arcuate and paraventricular hypothalamic fos expression were only observed following food intake and not following food driven exploration. Our data suggest that select activation of these cell types may be required to support high cognitive demand states such as observed during exploration while being dispensable during the ingestion of freely available food.

The complexity of the human brain derives from the intricate interplay of molecular instructions during development. Here we systematically investigated gene expression changes in the prenatal human striatum and cerebral cortex during development from post-conception weeks 2 to 20. We identified tissue-specific gene coexpression networks, differentially expressed genes and a minimal set of bimodal genes, including those encoding transcription factors, that distinguished striatal from neocortical identities. Unexpected differences from mouse striatal development were discovered. We monitored 36 determinants at the protein level, revealing regional domains of expression and their refinement, during striatal development. We electrophysiologically profiled human striatal neurons differentiated in vitro and determined their refined molecular and functional properties. These results provide a resource and opportunity to gain global understanding of how transcriptional and functional processes converge to specify human striatal and neocortical neurons during development.

The activity of excitatory neurons is controlled by a highly diverse population of inhibitory interneurons. These cells show a high level of physiological, morphological and neurochemical heterogeneity, and play highly specific roles in neuronal circuits. In the mammalian hippocampus, these are divided into 21 different subtypes of GABAergic interneurons based on their expression of different markers, morphology and their electrophysiological properties. Ideally, all can be marked using an antibody directed against the inhibitory neurotransmitter GABA, but parvalbumin, calbindin, somatostatin, and calretinin are also commonly used as markers to narrow down the specific interneuron subtype. Here, we describe a journey to find the necessary immunological reagents for studying GABAergic interneurons of the mouse hippocampus. Based on web searches there are several hundreds of different antibodies on the market directed against these four markers. Searches in the literature databases allowed us to narrow it down to a subset of antibodies most commonly used in publications. However, in our hands the most cited ones did not work for immunofluorescence stainings of formaldehyde fixed tissue sections and cultured hippocampal neurons, and we had to immunostain our way through thirteen different commercial antibodies before finally finding a suitable antibody for each of the four markers. The antibodies were evaluated based on signal-to-noise ratios as well as if positive cells were found in layers of the hippocampus where they have previously been described. Additionally, the antibodies were also tested on sections from mouse spinal cord with similar criteria for specificity of the antibodies. Using the antibodies with a high rating on pAbmAbs, an antibody review database, stainings with high signal-to-noise ratios and location of the immunostained cells in accordance with the literature could be obtained, making these antibodies suitable choices for studying the GABAergic system.