Electrical activity controls area-specific expression of neuronal apoptosis in the developing mouse cerebral cortex
Abstract
Programmed cell death widely but heterogeneously affects the developing brain, causing the loss of up to 50% of neurons in rodents. However, whether this heterogeneity originates from neuronal identity and/or network-dependent processes is unknown. Here, we report that the primary motor cortex (M1) and primary somatosensory cortex (S1), two adjacent but functionally distinct areas, display striking differences in density of apoptotic neurons during the early postnatal period. These differences in rate of apoptosis negatively correlate with region-dependent levels of activity. Disrupting this activity either pharmacologically or by electrical stimulation alters the spatial pattern of apoptosis and sensory deprivation leads to exacerbated amounts of apoptotic neurons in the corresponding functional area of the neocortex. Thus, our data demonstrate that spontaneous and periphery-driven activity patterns are important for the structural and functional maturation of the neocortex by refining the final number of cortical neurons in a region-dependent manner.
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Author details
Funding
German Research Foundation (Collaborative Research Center 1080)
- Anne Sinning
- Heiko J Luhmann
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
Ethics
Animal experimentation: All experiments were conducted in accordance with National and European (86/609/EEC) laws for the use of animals in research and were approved by the local ethical committee (Landesuntersuchungsamt Rheinland-Pfalz 23.177-07/G 10-1-010).
Copyright
© 2017, Blanquie et al.
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.
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