Institute of Computational Neuroscience, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, 20246 Hamburg, Germany;
Communications Cellulaires, Collège de France, 75005 Paris, France;
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2021 Jan 19;118(3). doi: 10.1073/pnas.2020574118.
Transmitter receptors constitute a key component of the molecular machinery for intercellular communication in the brain. Recent efforts have mapped the density of diverse transmitter receptors across the human cerebral cortex with an unprecedented level of detail. Here, we distill these observations into key organizational principles. We demonstrate that receptor densities form a natural axis in the human cerebral cortex, reflecting decreases in differentiation at the level of laminar organization and a sensory-to-association axis at the functional level. Along this natural axis, key organizational principles are discerned: progressive molecular diversity (increase of the diversity of receptor density); excitation/inhibition (increase of the ratio of excitatory-to-inhibitory receptor density); and mirrored, orderly changes of the density of ionotropic and metabotropic receptors. The uncovered natural axis formed by the distribution of receptors aligns with the axis that is formed by other dimensions of cortical organization, such as the myelo- and cytoarchitectonic levels. Therefore, the uncovered natural axis constitutes a unifying organizational feature linking multiple dimensions of the cerebral cortex, thus bringing order to the heterogeneity of cortical organization.
递质受体是细胞间通讯分子机制的关键组成部分。最近的研究努力以前所未有的详细程度绘制了不同递质受体在人类大脑皮层中的密度图。在这里，我们将这些观察结果提炼成关键的组织原则。我们证明，受体密度在人类大脑皮层中形成了一个自然的轴，反映了在层状组织水平上分化的降低，以及在功能水平上从感觉到关联的轴。沿着这个自然轴，可以辨别出关键的组织原则：分子多样性的逐渐增加（受体密度多样性的增加）；兴奋/抑制（兴奋性受体密度与抑制性受体密度之比的增加）；以及离子型和代谢型受体密度的镜像有序变化。受体分布形成的自然轴与皮层组织其他维度（如髓鞘和细胞构筑学水平）形成的轴对齐。因此，被揭示的受体分布自然轴构成了连接大脑皮层多个维度的统一组织特征，从而使皮层组织异质性有序化。
