Center for Neural Science, New York University, New York, New York 10003, USA.
J Neurosci. 2012 Sep 12;32(37):12808-19. doi: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1616-12.2012.
Pyramidal neurons in the prefrontal cortex (PFC) are important for the control of cognitive and emotional behavior. The medial PFC (mPFC) receives diverse long-range excitatory inputs from the midline thalamus, contralateral mPFC, basolateral amygdala, and ventral hippocampus. While axons from these different regions have distinct distributions in the mPFC, their functional connections at the cellular and subcellular levels remain unknown. Here, we use optogenetics to show that layer 2 pyramidal neurons in acute slices of the mouse mPFC receive excitatory inputs from each of these regions. Using a combination of optogenetics and two-photon microscopy, we then determine the subcellular properties of these inputs. We find that different types of inputs make selective contacts at the levels of both dendrites and spines. Using two-photon uncaging, we show that this subcellular targeting strongly influences synaptic efficacy in these neurons. Together, our results show that functional connectivity is finely tuned, with important implications for signal processing in the mPFC.
前额叶皮层（PFC）中的锥体神经元对于认知和情绪行为的控制很重要。内侧前额叶皮层（mPFC）接收来自中线丘脑、对侧 mPFC、基底外侧杏仁核和腹侧海马的各种长程兴奋性输入。虽然来自这些不同区域的轴突在 mPFC 中有不同的分布，但它们在细胞和亚细胞水平上的功能连接仍然未知。在这里，我们使用光遗传学来显示来自这些区域的兴奋性输入可到达急性小鼠 mPFC 切片中的第 2 层锥体神经元。然后，我们使用光遗传学和双光子显微镜的组合来确定这些输入的亚细胞特性。我们发现，不同类型的输入在树突和棘突水平上选择性地建立联系。使用双光子光解笼技术，我们表明这种亚细胞靶向强烈影响这些神经元中的突触效能。总之，我们的结果表明功能连接是精细调节的，这对 mPFC 中的信号处理有重要意义。
