Morgan Josh L
Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences,Department of Neuroscience,Washington University School of Medicine,Saint Louis,Missouri 63110.
Vis Neurosci. 2017 Jan;34:E014. doi: 10.1017/S0952523817000116.
Although the core functions and structure of the lateral geniculate nucleus (LGN) are well understood, this core is surrounded by questions about the integration of feedforward and feedback connections, interactions between different channels of information, and how activity dependent development restructures synaptic networks. Our understanding of the organization of the mouse LGN is particularly limited given how important it has become as a model system. Advances in circuit scale electron microscopy (cellular connectomics) have made it possible to reconstruct the synaptic connectivity of hundreds of neurons within in a circuit the size of the mouse LGN. These circuit reconstructions can reveal cell type-to-cell type canonical wiring diagrams as well as the higher order wiring motifs that are only visible in reconstructions of intact networks. Connectomic analysis of the LGN therefore not only can answer longstanding questions about the organization of the visual thalamus but also presents unique opportunities for investigating fundamental properties of mammalian circuit formation.
尽管外侧膝状体核（LGN）的核心功能和结构已得到充分了解，但围绕其仍存在诸多问题，如前馈和反馈连接的整合、不同信息通道之间的相互作用，以及活动依赖型发育如何重塑突触网络。鉴于小鼠LGN作为一个模型系统变得越来越重要，我们对其组织结构的了解尤其有限。电路规模电子显微镜（细胞连接组学）的进展使得在小鼠LGN大小的电路中重建数百个神经元的突触连接成为可能。这些电路重建不仅可以揭示细胞类型到细胞类型的典型接线图，还能展现只有在完整网络重建中才能看到的高阶接线模式。因此，对LGN的连接组分析不仅可以回答关于视觉丘脑组织结构的长期问题，还为研究哺乳动物电路形成的基本特性提供了独特的机会。
