Axonal synapse sorting in medial entorhinal cortex

Helene Schmidt (), Anjali Gour, Jakob Straehle, Kevin M. Boergens, Michael Brecht and Moritz Helmstaedter ()
Additional contact information
Helene Schmidt: Max Planck Institute for Brain Research
Anjali Gour: Max Planck Institute for Brain Research
Jakob Straehle: Max Planck Institute for Brain Research
Kevin M. Boergens: Max Planck Institute for Brain Research
Michael Brecht: Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience, Humboldt University
Moritz Helmstaedter: Max Planck Institute for Brain Research

Nature, 2017, vol. 549, issue 7673, 469-475

Abstract: Abstract Research on neuronal connectivity in the cerebral cortex has focused on the existence and strength of synapses between neurons, and their location on the cell bodies and dendrites of postsynaptic neurons. The synaptic architecture of individual presynaptic axonal trees, however, remains largely unknown. Here we used dense reconstructions from three-dimensional electron microscopy in rats to study the synaptic organization of local presynaptic axons in layer 2 of the medial entorhinal cortex, the site of grid-like spatial representations. We observe path-length-dependent axonal synapse sorting, such that axons of excitatory neurons sequentially target inhibitory neurons followed by excitatory neurons. Connectivity analysis revealed a cellular feedforward inhibition circuit involving wide, myelinated inhibitory axons and dendritic synapse clustering. Simulations show that this high-precision circuit can control the propagation of synchronized activity in the medial entorhinal cortex, which is known for temporally precise discharges.

Date: 2017
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature24005 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:nature:v:549:y:2017:i:7673:d:10.1038_nature24005

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/

DOI: 10.1038/nature24005

Access Statistics for this article

Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper

More articles in Nature from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().