小柯机器人

美国得克萨斯大学西南医学中心Genevieve Konopka、Bradley C. Lega等研究人员合作发现，人类情景记忆编码的振荡信号与基因表达相关。相关论文于2021年3月8日在线发表在《自然—神经科学》杂志上。

研究人员使用颅内脑电图记录从执行临时性记忆任务的患者颞叶皮质中测量出记忆敏感振荡。当这些患者随后接受切除手术时，研究人员在颞皮质使用转录组学将基因表达与脑震荡联系起来，并鉴定出与六个频段记忆形成的振荡信号相关的基因。共表达分析分离了与神经精神疾病和离子通道活性相关的振荡信号特异性模块，并且高度相关的基因在这些模块内表现出强大的连通性。

使用单核转录组学，研究人员进一步发现，这些模块富集了特定类别的兴奋性和抑制性神经元，并且免疫组化证实了高度相关基因的表达。这种针对特定患者的大脑振荡数据集与基因组学的结合为了解记忆编码的遗传机制开辟了新的见解。 

据介绍，在人类中，大脑振荡是记忆形成的关键特征。但是，了解这一活动的分子机制仍然是一个重大挑战。

附：英文原文

Title: Gene-expression correlates of the oscillatory signatures supporting human episodic memory encoding

Author: Stefano Berto, Miles R. Fontenot, Sarah Seger, Fatma Ayhan, Emre Caglayan, Ashwinikumar Kulkarni, Connor Douglas, Carol A. Tamminga, Bradley C. Lega, Genevieve Konopka

Issue&Volume: 2021-03-08

Abstract: In humans, brain oscillations support critical features of memory formation. However, understanding the molecular mechanisms underlying this activity remains a major challenge. Here, we measured memory-sensitive oscillations using intracranial electroencephalography recordings from the temporal cortex of patients performing an episodic memory task. When these patients subsequently underwent resection, we employed transcriptomics on the temporal cortex to link gene expression with brain oscillations and identified genes correlated with oscillatory signatures of memory formation across six frequency bands. A co-expression analysis isolated oscillatory signature-specific modules associated with neuropsychiatric disorders and ion channel activity, with highly correlated genes exhibiting strong connectivity within these modules. Using single-nucleus transcriptomics, we further revealed that these modules are enriched for specific classes of both excitatory and inhibitory neurons, and immunohistochemistry confirmed expression of highly correlated genes. This unprecedented dataset of patient-specific brain oscillations coupled to genomics unlocks new insights into the genetic mechanisms that support memory encoding. Berto et al. combine human intracranial brain oscillations recorded during mnemonic processing and measures of gene expression from brain tissue surgically removed from the same individuals to uncover gene expression patterns relevant to memory in humans.

DOI: 10.1038/s41593-021-00803-x

Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41593-021-00803-x

Nature Neuroscience：《自然—神经科学》，创刊于1998年。隶属于施普林格·自然出版集团，最新IF：28.771
官方网址：https://www.nature.com/neuro/
投稿链接：https://mts-nn.nature.com/cgi-bin/main.plex