Laminar Differences in Dendritic Structure of Pyramidal Neurons in the Juvenile Rat Somatosensory Cortex

Rojo, Carmen; Leguey, Ignacio; Kastanauskaite, Asta; Bielza, Concha; Larrañaga, Pedro; DeFelipe, Javier; Benavides-Piccione, Ruth

doi:10.1093/cercor/bhv316

Cited by 28 publications

(43 citation statements)

References 45 publications

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“…The dendritic structure of the 288 analyzed cells are described in detail in [18]. The mean length of basal dendritic wiring, in microns, grouping the cells by layer is shown in red in Fig 2.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The morphological characteristics of the same 288 pyramidal cells were analyzed in [18], concluding that there is a systematic layer-specific variation of the basal dendritic pattern in pyramidal cells. More specifically, the branching structure of pyramidal cells became progressively larger and more complex from superficial to deeper layers, save for layer IV, which contained the simplest cells.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For the sake of simplicity and unless otherwise stated, we refer to these single trunks of basal dendritic arbors as dendritic trees (Fig 1). Data on the reconstruction and dendritic structure of these cells has been already published [18]. …”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Fig 1 illustrates this procedure with a pyramidal cell from layer II (all the neurons analyzed in this study are shown in [18]). The basal dendritic arbor of the neuron in Fig 1 has six main dendritic trees (shown in different colors in Fig 1A).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For the sake of consistency with our previous studies, we opted to study the basal dendrites first. Therefore, we investigated the dendritic architecture of complete basal arbors of pyramidal neurons in all cortical layers (layers II, III, IV, Va, Vb and VI) as it has been shown that dendritic morphologies are statistically different in each cortical layer [18]. Thus, we were also interested in examining whether, within a cortical area, there are possible differences in wiring optimality across all cortical layers.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Wiring Economy of Pyramidal Cells in the Juvenile Rat Somatosensory Cortex

et al. 2016

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Ever since Cajal hypothesized that the structure of neurons is designed in such a way as to save space, time and matter, numerous researchers have analyzed wiring properties at different scales of brain organization. Here we test the hypothesis that individual pyramidal cells, the most abundant type of neuron in the cerebral cortex, optimize brain connectivity in terms of wiring length. In this study, we analyze the neuronal wiring of complete basal arborizations of pyramidal neurons in layer II, III, IV, Va, Vb and VI of the hindlimb somatosensory cortical region of postnatal day 14 rats. For each cell, we search for the optimal basal arborization and compare its length with the length of the real dendritic structure. Here the optimal arborization is defined as the arborization that has the shortest total wiring length provided that all neuron bifurcations are respected and the extent of the dendritic arborizations remain unchanged. We use graph theory and evolutionary computation techniques to search for the minimal wiring arborizations. Despite morphological differences between pyramidal neurons located in different cortical layers, we found that the neuronal wiring is near-optimal in all cases (the biggest difference between the shortest synthetic wiring found for a dendritic arborization and the length of its real wiring was less than 5%). We found, however, that the real neuronal wiring was significantly closer to the best solution found in layers II, III and IV. Our studies show that the wiring economy of cortical neurons is related not to the type of neurons or their morphological complexities but to general wiring economy principles.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Wiring Economy of Pyramidal Cells in the Juvenile Rat Somatosensory Cortex

et al. 2016

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Dendritic branching angles of pyramidal cells across layers of the juvenile rat somatosensory cortex

Leguey

Bielza

Larrañaga

et al. 2016

J of Comparative Neurology

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The characterization of the structural design of cortical microcircuits is essential for understanding how they contribute to function in both health and disease. Since pyramidal neurons represent the most abundant neuronal type and their dendritic spines constitute the major postsynaptic elements of cortical excitatory synapses, our understanding of the synaptic organization of the neocortex largely depends on the available knowledge regarding the structure of pyramidal cells. Previous studies have identified several apparently common rules in dendritic geometry. We study the dendritic branching angles of pyramidal cells across layers to further shed light on the principles that determine the geometric shapes of these cells. We find that the dendritic branching angles of pyramidal cells from layers II-VI of the juvenile rat somatosensory cortex suggest common design principles, despite the particular morphological and functional features that are characteristic of pyramidal cells in each cortical layer. J. Comp. Neurol. 524:2567-2576, 2016. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

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