EM connectomics reveals axonal target variation in a sequence-generating network
- Max Planck Institute of Neurobiology, Germany
- New York University Langone Medical Center, United States
- Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Germany
Abstract
The sequential activation of neurons has been observed in various areas of the brain, but in no case is the underlying network structure well understood. Here we examined the circuit anatomy of zebra finch HVC, a cortical region that generates sequences underlying the temporal progression of the song. We combined serial block-face electron microscopy with light microscopy to determine the cell types targeted by HVC(RA) neurons, which control song timing. Close to their soma, axons almost exclusively targeted inhibitory interneurons, consistent with what had been found with electrical recordings from pairs of cells. Conversely, far from the soma the targets were mostly other excitatory neurons, about half of these being other HVC(RA) cells. Both observations are consistent with the notion that the neural sequences that pace the song are generated by global synaptic chains in HVC embedded within local inhibitory networks.
Article and author information
Author details
Funding
National Institutes of Health (R01NS075044)
- Michael A Long
New York Stem Cell Foundation (NYSCF-R-NI18)
- Michael A Long
Rita Allen Foundation (Rita Allen)
- Michael A Long
Max Planck Society (Max Planck)
- Jörgen Kornfeld
- Rajeevan T Narayanan
- Fabian Svara
- Marcel Oberlaender
- Winfried Denk
Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience Tübingen
- Rajeevan T Narayanan
- Marcel Oberlaender
Boehringer Ingelheim Fonds
- Jörgen Kornfeld
- Fabian Svara
European Research Council (633428)
- Rajeevan T Narayanan
- Marcel Oberlaender
German Federal Ministry of Education and Research Grant
- Rajeevan T Narayanan
- Marcel Oberlaender
European Union's Horizon 2020
- Rajeevan T Narayanan
- Marcel Oberlaender
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
Reviewing Editor
- Karel Svoboda, Janelia Research Campus, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, United States
Ethics
Animal experimentation: This study was performed in strict accordance with the recommendations in the Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals of the National Institutes of Health. All of the animals were handled according to approved institutional animal care and use committee (IACUC) protocols of the New York University Medical Center.Our songbird protocol, entitled 'Understanding birdsong circuitry', was recently renewed. The protocol number is 161102-01.
Version history
- Received: December 17, 2016
- Accepted: March 23, 2017
- Accepted Manuscript published: March 27, 2017 (version 1)
- Version of Record published: April 21, 2017 (version 2)
Copyright
© 2017, Kornfeld 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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EM connectomics reveals axonal target variation in a sequence-generating network
eLife 6:e24364.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.24364
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