Cortico-striatal projections are critical components of forebrain circuitry that regulate motivated behaviors. To enable the study of the human cortico-striatal pathway and how its dysfunction leads to neuropsychiatric disease, we developed a method to convert human pluripotent stem cells into region-specific brain organoids that resemble the developing human striatum and include electrically active medium spiny neurons. We then assembled these organoids with cerebral cortical organoids in three-dimensional cultures to form cortico-striatal assembloids. Using viral tracing and functional assays in intact or sliced assembloids, we show that cortical neurons send axonal projections into striatal organoids and form synaptic connections. Medium spiny neurons mature electrophysiologically following assembly and display calcium activity after optogenetic stimulation of cortical neurons. Moreover, we derive cortico-striatal assembloids from patients with a neurodevelopmental disorder caused by a deletion on chromosome 22q13.3 and capture disease-associated defects in calcium activity, showing that this approach will allow investigation of the development and functional assembly of cortico-striatal connectivity using patient-derived cells.
Developing neural circuits face the dual challenge of growing in an activity-induced fashion and maintaining stability through homeostatic mechanisms. Compared to our understanding of homeostatic regulation of excitatory synapses, relatively little is known about the mechanism mediating homeostatic plasticity of inhibitory synapses, especially that following activity elevation. Here, we found that elevating neuronal activity in cultured hippocampal neurons for 4 h significantly increased the frequency and amplitude of mIPSCs, before detectable change at excitatory synapses. Consistently, we observed increases in presynaptic and postsynaptic proteins of GABAergic synapses, including GAD65, vGAT, and GABA A R␣1. By suppressing activity-induced increase of neuronal firing with expression of the inward rectifier potassium channel Kir2.1 in individual neurons, we showed that elevation in postsynaptic spiking activity is required for activity-dependent increase in the frequency and amplitude of mIPSCs. Importantly, directly elevating spiking in individual postsynaptic neurons, by capsaicin activation of overexpressed TRPV1 channels, was sufficient to induce increased mIPSC amplitude and frequency, mimicking the effect of elevated neuronal activity. Downregulating BDNF expression in the postsynaptic neuron or its extracellular scavenging prevented activity-induced increase in mIPSC frequency, consistent with a role of BDNF-dependent retrograde signaling in this process. Finally, elevating activity in vivo by kainate injection increased both mIPSC amplitude and frequency in CA1 pyramidal neurons. Thus, spiking-induced, cell-autonomous upregulation of GABAergic synaptic inputs, through retrograde BDNF signaling, represents an early adaptive response of neural circuits to elevated network activity.
Self-organizing neural organoids represent a promising in vitro platform with which to model human development and disease1–5. However, organoids lack the connectivity that exists in vivo, which limits maturation and makes integration with other circuits that control behaviour impossible. Here we show that human stem cell-derived cortical organoids transplanted into the somatosensory cortex of newborn athymic rats develop mature cell types that integrate into sensory and motivation-related circuits. MRI reveals post-transplantation organoid growth across multiple stem cell lines and animals, whereas single-nucleus profiling shows progression of corticogenesis and the emergence of activity-dependent transcriptional programs. Indeed, transplanted cortical neurons display more complex morphological, synaptic and intrinsic membrane properties than their in vitro counterparts, which enables the discovery of defects in neurons derived from individuals with Timothy syndrome. Anatomical and functional tracings show that transplanted organoids receive thalamocortical and corticocortical inputs, and in vivo recordings of neural activity demonstrate that these inputs can produce sensory responses in human cells. Finally, cortical organoids extend axons throughout the rat brain and their optogenetic activation can drive reward-seeking behaviour. Thus, transplanted human cortical neurons mature and engage host circuits that control behaviour. We anticipate that this approach will be useful for detecting circuit-level phenotypes in patient-derived cells that cannot otherwise be uncovered.
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