EconPapers    
Economics at your fingertips  
 

Network-level encoding of local neurotransmitters in cortical astrocytes

Michelle K. Cahill, Max Collard, Vincent Tse, Michael E. Reitman, Roberto Etchenique, Christoph Kirst and Kira E. Poskanzer ()
Additional contact information
Michelle K. Cahill: University of California
Max Collard: University of California
Vincent Tse: University of California
Michael E. Reitman: University of California
Roberto Etchenique: Departamento de Química Inorgánica, Analítica y Química Física, INQUIMAE, Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales, Universidad de Buenos Aires, CONICET
Christoph Kirst: University of California
Kira E. Poskanzer: University of California

Nature, 2024, vol. 629, issue 8010, 146-153

Abstract: Abstract Astrocytes, the most abundant non-neuronal cell type in the mammalian brain, are crucial circuit components that respond to and modulate neuronal activity through calcium (Ca2+) signalling1–7. Astrocyte Ca2+ activity is highly heterogeneous and occurs across multiple spatiotemporal scales—from fast, subcellular activity3,4 to slow, synchronized activity across connected astrocyte networks8–10—to influence many processes5,7,11. However, the inputs that drive astrocyte network dynamics remain unclear. Here we used ex vivo and in vivo two-photon astrocyte imaging while mimicking neuronal neurotransmitter inputs at multiple spatiotemporal scales. We find that brief, subcellular inputs of GABA and glutamate lead to widespread, long-lasting astrocyte Ca2+ responses beyond an individual stimulated cell. Further, we find that a key subset of Ca2+ activity—propagative activity—differentiates astrocyte network responses to these two main neurotransmitters, and may influence responses to future inputs. Together, our results demonstrate that local, transient neurotransmitter inputs are encoded by broad cortical astrocyte networks over a minutes-long time course, contributing to accumulating evidence that substantial astrocyte–neuron communication occurs across slow, network-level spatiotemporal scales12–14. These findings will enable future studies to investigate the link between specific astrocyte Ca2+ activity and specific functional outputs, which could build a consistent framework for astrocytic modulation of neuronal activity.

Date: 2024
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07311-5 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:629:y:2024:i:8010:d:10.1038_s41586-024-07311-5

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

DOI: 10.1038/s41586-024-07311-5

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 ().

 
Page updated 2025-03-19
Handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:629:y:2024:i:8010:d:10.1038_s41586-024-07311-5