Event Details:
Structural Dynamics of Neocortical Inhibitory Circuits Elly Nedivi, Ph.D. Professor, Picower Institute for Learning and Memory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology - MIT
Host: Louise Giam
Abstract
Inhibitory neurons play a vital role in defining the window for critical period plasticity during development, and it is increasingly apparent that they continue to exert powerful control over experience-dependent cortical plasticity in adulthood. Our previous findings show that while pyramidal neurons in layer 2/3 (L2/3) of adult visual cortex are structurally stable, GABAergic interneurons display significant dendritic branch tip remodelling driven by visual experience in an input and circuit-specific manner. Recently, we developed a method for labeling inhibitory synapses in vivo and found that the rearrangements of inhibitory synapses and dendritic spines are locally clustered, and that this clustering is influenced by experience. Extending our in vivo imaging capabilities to a three-color labeling system, we are currently monitoring the full synaptic complement onto individual L2/3 pyramidal neurons in mouse primary visual cortex in order to address how excitatory and inhibitory synapse dynamics are spatially and temporally distributed across the dendritic arbor, to what extent they are locally.