Variation of connectivity across exemplar sensory and associative thalamocortical loops in the mouse

  1. Arghya Mukherjee  Is a corresponding author
  2. Navdeep Bajwa
  3. Norman H Lam
  4. César Porrero
  5. Francisco Clasca
  6. Michael M Halassa  Is a corresponding author
  1. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, United States
  2. Autonoma University of Madrid, Spain

Abstract

The thalamus engages in sensation, action, and cognition, but the structure underlying these functions is poorly understood. Thalamic innervation of associative cortex targets several interneuron types, modulating dynamics and influencing plasticity. Is this structure-function relationship distinct from that of sensory thalamocortical systems? Here, we systematically compared function and structure across a sensory and an associative thalamocortical loop in the mouse. Enhancing excitability of mediodorsal thalamus, an associative structure, resulted in prefrontal activity dominated by inhibition. Equivalent enhancement of medial geniculate excitability robustly drove auditory cortical excitation. Structurally, geniculate axons innervated excitatory cortical targets in a preferential manner and with larger synaptic terminals, providing a putative explanation for functional divergence. The two thalamic circuits also had distinct input patterns, with mediodorsal thalamus receiving innervation from a diverse set of cortical areas. Altogether, our findings contribute to the emerging view of functional diversity across thalamic microcircuits and its structural basis.

Data availability

All data generated or analyzed are included in the manuscript as source data files for Figures 1 to 7.

Article and author information

Author details

  1. Arghya Mukherjee

    Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, United States
    For correspondence
    mukhargh@mit.edu
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0002-3341-4408
  2. Navdeep Bajwa

    Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  3. Norman H Lam

    Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  4. César Porrero

    Anatomy and Neuroscience, Autonoma University of Madrid, Madrid, Spain
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  5. Francisco Clasca

    Anatomy and Neuroscience, Autonoma University of Madrid, Madrid, Spain
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0003-0718-1337
  6. Michael M Halassa

    Neuroscience Institute, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, New York, United States
    For correspondence
    mhalassa@mit.edu
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

Funding

European Commission (945539-HBP-SGA3)

  • Francisco Clasca

National Institute of Mental Health (R01MH120118)

  • Michael M Halassa

National Institute of Mental Health (R01MH107680)

  • Michael M Halassa

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 animal experiments were performed according to the guidelines of the US National Institutes of Health and the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Experimental procedures for bouton analysis as shown in figure 4 were approved by the Autonoma de Madrid University ethics committee and the corresponding Madrid Regional Government agency (PROEX175/16), in accordance with the European Community Council Directive 2010/63/UE.

Copyright

© 2020, Mukherjee 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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  1. Arghya Mukherjee
  2. Navdeep Bajwa
  3. Norman H Lam
  4. César Porrero
  5. Francisco Clasca
  6. Michael M Halassa
(2020)
Variation of connectivity across exemplar sensory and associative thalamocortical loops in the mouse
eLife 9:e62554.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.62554

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https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.62554