Prefrontal Interneurons: Populations, Pathways, and Plasticity Supporting Typical and Disordered Cognition in Rodent Models

Overview

Journal J Neurosci

Specialty Neurology

Date 2022 Nov 9

PMID 36351822

Authors

David A Kupferschmidt

Kirstie A Cummings

Max E Joffe

Andrew MacAskill

Ruchi Malik

Candela Sanchez-Bellot

Hugo A Tejeda

Hector Yarur Castillo

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Prefrontal cortex (PFC) inhibitory microcircuits regulate the gain and timing of pyramidal neuron firing, coordinate neural ensemble interactions, and gate local and long-range neural communication to support adaptive cognition and contextually tuned behavior. Accordingly, perturbations of PFC inhibitory microcircuits are thought to underlie dysregulated cognition and behavior in numerous psychiatric diseases and relevant animal models. This review, based on a Mini-Symposium presented at the 2022 Society for Neuroscience Meeting, highlights recent studies providing novel insights into: (1) discrete medial PFC (mPFC) interneuron populations in the mouse brain; (2) mPFC interneuron connections with, and regulation of, long-range mPFC afferents; and (3) circuit-specific plasticity of mPFC interneurons. The contributions of such populations, pathways, and plasticity to rodent cognition are discussed in the context of stress, reward, motivational conflict, and genetic mutations relevant to psychiatric disease.

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