Conserved structures of neural activity in sensorimotor cortex of freely moving rats allow cross-subject decoding
Melbaum S, Russo E, Eriksson D, Schneider A, Durstewitz D, Brox T, Diester I.
Nat Commun. 2022 Dec 2;13(1):7420. doi: 10.1038/s41467-022-35115-6.
Our knowledge about neuronal activity in the sensorimotor cortex relies primarily on stereotyped movements that are strictly controlled in experimental settings. It remains unclear how results can be carried over to less constrained behavior like that of freely … 

Disrupted-in-schizophrenia-1 is required for normal pyramidal cell–interneuron communication and assembly dynamics in the prefrontal cortex 
Sauer JF, Bartos M.
Elife. 2022 Oct 14;11:e79471. doi: 10.7554/eLife.79471.
We interrogated prefrontal circuit function in mice lacking Disrupted-in-schizophrenia-1 (Disc1-mutant mice), a risk factor for psychiatric disorders. …Moreover, we observed decreased spike transmission efficacy at local pyramidal cell (PYR)-INT conn…

Pregnancy-induced maternal microchimerism shapes neurodevelopment and behavior in mice
Schepanski S, Chini M, Sternemann V, Urbschat C, Thiele K, Sun T, Zhao Y, Poburski M, Woestemeier A, Thieme MT, Zazara DE, Alawi M, Fischer N, Heeren J, Vladimirov N, Woehler A, Puelles VG, Bonn S, Gagliani N, Hanganu-Opatz IL, Arck PC.
Nat Commun. 2022 Aug 5;13(1):4571. doi: 10.1038/s41467-022-32230-2.
Life-long brain function and mental health are critically determined by developmental processes occurring before birth. During mammalian pregnancy, maternal cells are transferred to the fetus. They are referred to as maternal microchimeric cells (MMc). Among other o …

3D pose estimation enables virtual head-fixation in freely moving rats
Schneider A, Zimmermann C, Alyahyay M, Steenbergen F, Brox T, Diester I.
Neuron. 2022 Jul 6;110(13):2080-2093.e10. doi: 10.1016/j.neuron.2022.04.019. Epub 2022 May 23.
The impact of spontaneous movements on neuronal activity has created the need to quantify behavior. We present a versatile framework to directly capture the 3D motion of freely definable body points in a marker-free manner with high precision and reliability. Combin …

Prefrontal pyramidal neurons are critical for all phases of working memory
Vogel P, Hahn J, Duvarci S, Sigurdsson T.
Cell Rep. 2022 Apr 12;39(2):110659. doi: 10.1016/j.celrep.2022.110659.
The prefrontal cortex (PFC) is essential for working memory (WM) and has primarily been viewed as being responsible for maintaining information over a delay, but it is unclear whether it also plays a more general role during WM. …Pyramidal neuron ens …

Multichannel optogenetics combined with laminar recordings for ultra-controlled neuronal interrogation
Eriksson D, Schneider A, Thirumalai A, Alyahyay M, de la Crompe B, Sharma K, Ruther P, Diester I.
Nat Commun. 2022 Feb 21;13(1):985. doi: 10.1038/s41467-022-28629-6.
Simultaneous large-scale recordings and optogenetic interventions may hold the key to deciphering the fast-paced and multifaceted dialogue between neurons that sustains brain function. …Here we combined those fibers with silicon probes to achieve high-quality recordings … 

Topographically organized representation of space and context in the medial prefrontal cortex
Sauer JF, Folschweiller S, Bartos M.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2022 Feb 8;119(6):e2117300119. doi: 10.1073/pnas.2117300119.
Topographical analysis revealed a dorsoventral gradient in the representation of the own position, which runs opposite to the innervation density of hippocampal inputs. Jointly, these results reveal a dynamically emerging and topographically organized …

Introducing the Research Unit 5159 “Resolving the prefrontal circuits of cognitive flexibility
Hanganu-Opatz IL., Diester I.,
Neuroforum, Issue 01 2022