Whisker patterns form in cultured non-innervated muzzle skin from mouse embryos

Andrés, F.L.; Loos, H. Van der

doi:10.1016/0304-3940(82)90008-8

Cited by 18 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 11 publications

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“…, 1986). A similar progressive development of the TCA pattern from the postero‐medial (large barrels) to antero‐lateral side (small barrels) occurs for the barrel field (Andres & Van der Loos, 1982; Van der Loos et al. , 1986; Rebsam et al.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 52%

“…Why do the patterns for small whiskers get so easily lost? During embryogenesis, there is a gradient by which the whisker pad develops: the first follicles appear at the ‘delta corner’ where the straddle whiskers (α,β,γ) are located, the last ones develop at the rostral ends of rows A and B (Andres & Van der Loos, 1982; Van der Loos et al. , 1986).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Roles of mGluR5 in synaptic function and plasticity of the mouse thalamocortical pathway

She

Quairiaux

Albright

et al. 2009

Eur J of Neuroscience

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The group I metabotropic glutamate receptor 5 (mGluR5) has been implicated in the development of cortical sensory maps. However its precise roles in the synaptic function and plasticity of thalamocortical connections remain unknown. Here we first show that in mGluR5 knockout mice bred onto a C57BL6 background cyto-architectonic differentiation into barrels is missing, but the representations for large whiskers are identifiable as clusters of thalamocortical afferents. The altered dendritic morphology of cortical layer IV spiny stellate neurons in mGluR5 knockout mice implicates a role for mGluR5 in the dendritic morphogenesis of excitatory neurons. Next, in vivo single unit recordings of whisker evoked activity in mGluR5 knockout adults demonstrated a preserved topographical organization of the whisker representation, but a significantly diminished temporal discrimination of center to surround whiskers in the responses of individual neurons. To evaluate synaptic function at thalamocortical synapses in mGluR5 knockout mice, whole-cell voltage clamp recording was conducted in acute thalamocortical brain slices prepared from postnatal day 4-11 mice. At mGluR5 knockout thalamocortical synapses, NMDA currents decayed faster and synaptic strength was more easily reduced, but more difficult to strengthen by Hebbian-type pairing protocols, despite a normal developmental increase in AMPAR-mediated currents and presynaptic function. We have therefore demonstrated that mGluR5 is required for synaptic function/plasticity at thalamocortical synapses as barrels are forming and we propose that these functional alterations at the thalamocortical synapse are the basis of the abnormal anatomical and functional development of the somatosensory cortex in the mGluR5 knockout mouse.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 52%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Roles of mGluR5 in synaptic function and plasticity of the mouse thalamocortical pathway

She

Quairiaux

Albright

et al. 2009

Eur J of Neuroscience

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“…The whisker follicle pattern is first established in the facial skin independently of innervation 124 . However, reciprocal interactions between the developing target tissues and trigeminal ganglion innervation play a major part in establishing an approximate soma-totopy between the dorsoventral axes of the face and the brainstem.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mapping the face in the somatosensory brainstem

2010

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The facial somatosensory map in the cortex is derived from facial representations that are first established at the brainstem level and then serially ‘copied’ at each stage of the somatosensory pathway. Recent studies have provided insights into the molecular mechanisms involved in the development of somatotopic maps of the face and whiskers in the trigeminal nuclei of the mouse brainstem. This work has revealed that early molecular regionalization and positional patterning of trigeminal ganglion and brainstem target neurons are established by homeodomain transcription factors, the expression of which is induced and maintained by signals from the brain and face. Such position-dependent information is fundamental in transforming the early spatial layout of sensory receptors into a topographic connectivity map that is conferred to higher brain levels.

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“…(2) In the periphery one faces the similar question of how vibrissae initially become spaced. Perhaps mechanisms operating there (which are local, since they can occur even in excised skin; see Andres and Van der Loos, 1982), are reiterated in cortex. Meinhardt (1982) and others (e.g., Van der Loos et al, 1986), argue that "reaction-diffusion" systems are responsible for setting the intervals between arrays of facial whiskers, like those thought to site scales and feathers (see Davidson, 1983).…”

Section: Potential Mechanismsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mouse Barrel Cortex Viewed as Dirichlet Domains

Senft

Woolsey

1991

Cereb Cortex

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Barrels are patterned groups of neurons in rodent somatosensory cortex that correspond one to one with the animal's facial whiskers. Dirichlet domains are a class of convex polygon found frequently in nature, often arising by nucleation from center points. Analytic and graphical methods were devised to verify the hypothesis that Dirichlet domains accurately describe the adult barrel fields of normal mice. We found that normal barrel fields and abnormal barrel fields caused by supernumerary whiskers or lesions to the whisker pad are closely approximated by this mathematical formalism. This implies that each developing cortical barrel organizes about a center point. Experiments in neonatal animals (Senft and Woolsey, 1991a) demonstrate foci in the thalamocortical afferent (TCA) distributions. These results support an hypothesis in which TCAs are the nucleating agents causing barrels to organize as Dirichlet domains. This is made possible because TCA terminals from each barreloid (a whisker-related group of cells in the ventrobasal complex of the thalamus) initially colonize somatosensory cortex with an approximately "Gaussian" distribution. These peaked groups of related TCAs behave as Dirichlet domain centers. They generate barrel structures competitively, in animals with normal or with perturbed whisker patterns, via statistical epigenetic interactions within and between distinct TCA Gaussians associated with separate whiskers. This leads to selective axon outgrowth and pruning of single TCA branches, regulated by the TCA population, and creates beneath each Gaussian the dense knot of related TCA arbors typical of the barrel cortex. Similar parcellation of neuronal processes into contending subgroups having spatially coherent actions could lead to nucleation of other geometric patterns as Dirichlet domains elsewhere in the brain.

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Whisker patterns form in cultured non-innervated muzzle skin from mouse embryos

Cited by 18 publications

References 11 publications

Roles of mGluR5 in synaptic function and plasticity of the mouse thalamocortical pathway

Roles of mGluR5 in synaptic function and plasticity of the mouse thalamocortical pathway

Mapping the face in the somatosensory brainstem

Mouse Barrel Cortex Viewed as Dirichlet Domains

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