美国加州大学洛杉矶分校Orkun Akin团队发现一个离散的神经元群体协调全脑发育活动。2022年2月9日出版的《自然》杂志发表了这项成果。
他们表明表达阳离子通道瞬时受体电位 γ (Trpγ) 的神经元在整个果蝇大脑中传递和模式发育活动。在 trpγ 突变体中，活动整体减弱，并且活动模式和突触结构都以细胞类型特异性方式发生改变。大脑中不到 2% 的神经元表达 Trpγ。这些神经元在整个大脑中呈树枝状分布，沉默或激活它们会导致全脑活动的丧失或增加。
总之，这些结果表明这一小群神经元协调了全脑的发育活动。他们提出，发育活动的刻板模式是由一个离散的、遗传指定的网络驱动的，以指导单个细胞和突触水平的神经回路组装。这项工作将果蝇大脑确立为一个实验上易于处理的系统，用于研究活动如何促进突触和回路形成。
据介绍，在脊椎动物中，与刺激无关的活动伴随着整个发育中的大脑的神经回路成熟。最近在发育中的果蝇中枢神经系统中发现了类似的活动，这表明发育活动是复杂大脑组装的基础。这种活动如何在不同的大脑区域协调以影响定义细胞类型水平的突触发育尚不清楚。
附：英文原文
Title: A discrete neuronal population coordinates brain-wide developmental activity
Author: Bajar, Bryce T., Phi, Nguyen T., Isaacman-Beck, Jesse, Reichl, Jun, Randhawa, Harpreet, Akin, Orkun
Issue&Volume: 2022-02-09
Abstract: In vertebrates, stimulus-independent activity accompanies neural circuit maturation throughout the developing brain1,2. The recent discovery of similar activity in the developing Drosophila central nervous system suggests that developmental activity is fundamental to the assembly of complex brains3. How such activity is coordinated across disparate brain regions to influence synaptic development at the level of defined cell types is not well understood. Here we show that neurons expressing the cation channel transient receptor potential gamma (Trpγ) relay and pattern developmental activity throughout the Drosophila brain. In trpγ mutants, activity is attenuated globally, and both patterns of activity and synapse structure are altered in a cell-type-specific manner. Less than 2% of the neurons in the brain express Trpγ. These neurons arborize throughout the brain, and silencing or activating them leads to loss or gain of brain-wide activity. Together, these results indicate that this small population of neurons coordinates brain-wide developmental activity. We propose that stereotyped patterns of developmental activity are driven by a discrete, genetically specified network to instruct neural circuit assembly at the level of individual cells and synapses. This work establishes the fly brain as an experimentally tractable system for studying how activity contributes to synapse and circuit formation.
DOI: 10.1038/s41586-022-04406-9
Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-04406-9
Nature：《自然》，创刊于1869年。隶属于施普林格·自然出版集团，最新IF：69.504
官方网址：http://www.nature.com/
投稿链接：http://www.nature.com/authors/submit_manuscript.html
本期文章：《自然》：Online/在线发表
