Department of Neuroscience, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA.
Mortimer B. Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA.
Nature. 2022 Jan;601(7891):105-109. doi: 10.1038/s41586-021-04169-9. Epub 2021 Dec 1.
Local circuit architecture facilitates the emergence of feature selectivity in the cerebral cortex. In the hippocampus, it remains unknown whether local computations supported by specific connectivity motifs regulate the spatial receptive fields of pyramidal cells. Here we developed an in vivo electroporation method for monosynaptic retrograde tracing and optogenetics manipulation at single-cell resolution to interrogate the dynamic interaction of place cells with their microcircuitry during navigation. We found a local circuit mechanism in CA1 whereby the spatial tuning of an individual place cell can propagate to a functionally recurrent subnetwork to which it belongs. The emergence of place fields in individual neurons led to the development of inverse selectivity in a subset of their presynaptic interneurons, and recruited functionally coupled place cells at that location. Thus, the spatial selectivity of single CA1 neurons is amplified through local circuit plasticity to enable effective multi-neuronal representations that can flexibly scale environmental features locally without degrading the feedforward input structure.
局部回路结构有助于大脑皮层中特征选择性的出现。在海马体中，尚不清楚由特定连接模式支持的局部计算是否调节了锥体神经元的空间感受野。在这里，我们开发了一种在体电穿孔方法，用于在单细胞分辨率下进行单突触逆行示踪和光遗传学操作，以探究在导航过程中位置细胞与其微电路之间的动态相互作用。我们发现 CA1 中的局部回路机制，即单个位置细胞的空间调谐可以传播到其所属的功能上可重复的子网。单个神经元中位置场的出现导致其部分突触前中间神经元出现反向选择性，并且在该位置募集功能耦合的位置细胞。因此，单个 CA1 神经元的空间选择性通过局部回路可塑性得到增强，从而能够灵活地局部扩展环境特征，而不会降低前馈输入结构。
