9/10 By making some tweaks to our behavioral paradigm, we found that this error-related activity downregulation of NDNFs also applied for other forms of learning as initial learning.
New voltage indicators from St-Pierre lab and collaborators:
- FORCE1s: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
- JEDI3sub and JEDI3hyp: www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Blog post about voltage imaging: spikesandbursts.wordpress.com/2018/11/06/v...
Timothy O'Leary
The genetically encoded voltage indicators JEDI3sub and JEDI3hyp enhance monitoring of subthreshold neuronal activity in the awake mouse brain using a variety of two-photon microscopy techniques.
4/10 What we did:
We trained mice to switch between decision-making tasks with different rules, while performing a wide set of manipulations and recordings on apical dendrites of L5b neurons in anterolateral motor cortex (ALM), a region crucial for action selection in rodents.
Eduardo Maristany de las Casas
6/10 Simultaneously imaging dendrites while activating NDNFs showed an astonishing result:
NDNFs suppressed global calcium activity in dendritic shafts but not local events in spines. (Video: Left-Control; Right-DCZ)
A previously unseen dissociation—with major implications for synaptic plasticity.
Video
10/10 We interpret our findings as evidence for a dendritic gating mechanism for flexible learning: NDNFs control when apical dendrites can undergo plasticity, based on behavioral context. When errors signal rules have changed, NDNFs step back, opening a window for updating associations.
