🧠🪰 The adult Drosophila brain connectome now gives us a complete wiring diagram of ~140k neurons. But a wiring diagram alone isn’t understanding.
How is this massive network organized?
Our paper tackles that question by mapping community structure across the entire fly brain. 1/
Great to see it out! Congrats!
🥳Excited to share our latest human multipatch paper, now out in @natneuro.nature.com
🧠 We studied the cellular and synaptic physiology of human L2–3 pyramidal neurons and identified subtype-specific local connectivity rules across individuals.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Join us: penglab.de
Structure and organization of AMPA receptor-TARP complexes in the mammalian cerebellum | Science www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
And you'll find the preprint explainer here:
Our paper on 'mini analysis' is now published in @jphysiol.bsky.social
If you are recording mPSCs or sPSCs, I hope this helps with analysis. Interpretation of these datasets is not as easy as it seems..!
Happy to discuss if you are interested
physoc.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1113/...
Extremely happy to share our lab’s first paper now published in @NatureSMB! We determined the cryo-EM structures of GluA4, both alone and in complex with TARP2, capturing the receptor in different functional states.
Finding correlates of the same signal in different brain areas is not evidence against specialisation, it is evidence for interconnection.
When I flush my toilet, the level in the tank and the flow rate in the supply pipe become perfectly correlated. Yet these toilet areas have distinct functions.
Are you passionate about advancing cutting-edge imaging technologies, and combine expansion microscopy with the power of AI@HHMI to unlock new biological discoveries? If you’re ready for a creative,and impactful journey, we’d love for you to apply!
hhmi.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/Extern...
Hi Pablo - if you still need the info, this pattern is very nice staining of the mossy fibre tract (DG output). Your protein seems to be specific for granule cell axons!
Glad you enjoyed it John!
Thanks!!
There is a lot more on cell and synaptic properties in the full paper, but this data adds to the emerging picture of heterogeneous excitatory neurons... many interesting cell and circuit features can be revealed only by diving into the (often complex and confusing) heterogeneity of the brain!
Composite figure showing (upper left), spontaneous PSC recording with correlated input into specific cells (purple). Cross-correlograms (lower) showed specific coincident input at t=0 onto pairs of PNs of the same subclass. Quantification (upper right) confirmed this effect, which could be blocked with the GABAAR antagonist GABAzine (purple).
Inhibitory wiring also had a surprise. Spontaneous GABAergic input was strikingly coincident on PNs of the same subclass, suggesting specific wiring of interneurons into each PN type - for layer-specific control! @zhihaozheng.bsky.social has now visualized this wiring in his beautiful connectomics
Composite figure showing staining (lower) and schematic (upper left) of a multicellular recording containing two PN subtypes (superficial, red; and deep, blue). Right: Connectivity measurements within and between subtypes show similar connectivity from superficial cells to both other superficial cells and deep cells, whereas deep cells preferentially connect to other deep cells.
Deep and superficial PNs had a surprise in their recurrent connectivity: superficial PNs connect broadly, but deep PNs show little local connectivity back to superficial cells. This suggests that deep PNs form their own subnetwork, perhaps 'associating the associations' made in superficial CA3..
Collection of figures showing (upper left), multicellular patch-clamp recording pipettes in tissue, (lower left) example superficial (red) and deep (blue) pyramidal neuron stainings, with indicated thorns (arrowhead), and (right) graph of burst firing frequency for CA3 pyramidal neurons showing segregation of two subclasses.
Across the brain, PNs show a lot of heterogeneity. In CA3 it’s clearest on the deep-superficial axis, and we see 'deep bursting' PNs that have been shown before. From hundreds of recorded cells, these are clearly a distinct subclass in our hands, but are not strictly 'athorny' as has been suggested.
Our work looking into heterogeneous pyramidal neurons (PNs) in hippocampal CA3 is now online @cp-cellreports.bsky.social: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... With a pile of multicellular recordings from mouse CA3, we characterised the recurrent network at the single cell level...
If you are interested in a position working on the coolest new developments in connectomics - take a serious look at this. Incredible technology development opportunity, working with a super nice scientist! Check out the paper here if you haven’t seen it yet: www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Really beautiful hippocampal connectomics from @zhihaozheng.bsky.social et al. Such high quality data shows many interesting circuit wiring surprises - an incredible resource to digest! Great also to see the parallels with our physiology work on neuronal heterogeneity
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
I'm pleased to share our new work, “Spatio-temporal organization of network activity patterns in the hippocampus”, out in @cp-cellreports.bsky.social !
With Demi Brizee & David Dupret, we track how oscillations and spiking behaviour map onto hippocampal layers using an LFP-based embedding.
(1/13)
If you are using IVA Cloning for your plasmid work... there is a cool new tool to make primer design very easy: ivaprime.com
The explanation paper is here: academic.oup.com/nar/advance-...
Incredibly impressive and powerful new method - connectomics with light microscopy! Congrats @mojtabart.bsky.social, Hans Danzl and team @istaresearch.bsky.social ! It works incredibly well - we will keep using this magic, and recommend you do too!
Given all that is going on consider this quote from Bertram Russell's 1930 book The conquest of Happiness:
“The man who can be interested in the structure of atoms or the way in which a beetle navigates, is likely to get a joy in life which no amount of success in the pursuit of power can give. ”
..and it is not every meeting that your first task for the day is trying to keep up with Brazilian football on the beach!
A heartfelt thanks to all the organisers for bringing together a fantastic community of students and speakers for an incredibly inspiring meeting!
@vitorlds.bsky.social
@rhythmicspikes.bsky.social
Andressa Radiske
& Caro Gonzalez
A group of conference organisers, speakers, and students at lunch in Pipa!
The Neural Mechanisms of Cognitive Function meeting in beautiful #Pipa has sadly come to an end, but this meeting has given me new faith that really fascinating and innovative science is fully compatible with a kind, considerate, and supportive atmosphere! #BeNiceAndEnjoyYourScience
Presentation introduction slide and presenter giving a great talk!
And finally talk 20 was @rhythmicspikes.bsky.social herself presenting beautiful data asking really insightful questions on how brain activity is linked to location and movement during memory tasks!
Striking insights into the information content of hippocampal subpopulations! A really stunning example of how understanding discrete cell types brings coherence and clarity to complex neuronal activity. Congrats to all
Beautiful and thorough dissection of neuronal heterogeneity! Individual cells matter.
