Notable Preprints

During our research, we come across many interesting scientific articles. Here are our favories from BioRxiv.

Methods

Various combinations of fiber photometry recordings of calcium, dopamine, and acetylcholine signals in the dorsomedial striatum and its inputs
During visual stimulation

In dorsal medial striatum, visual stimuli evoke acetylcholine-dependent dopamine release
Cholinergic interneurons in the dorsal medial striatum are also activated during visual stimulation and may provide the source of acetylcholine
Using rabies-mediated retrograde labeling, determined that cholinergic interneurons receive innervation from the prefontal cortex (particularly from the anterior cingulate area).
Confirmed in vitro that activation of prefrontal cortex afferents both activated cholinergic interneurons and evoked dopamine release in the medial dorsal striatum; primary sensory cortical afferents did not.

Recordings of respiration along with simultaneous tetrode recordings of:
- projection neurons in the olfactory tubercle of the striatum and
- opto-tagged dopamine neurons in the ventral tegmental area
During learning in an olfactory go/no go task

Both cell types’ firing rates are phase-locked to the respiratory cycle
The preferred phase changes over the course of learning to the post-inspiratory phase
Cells that are locked to this phase participate in odor discrimination
Olfactory tubercule -> VTA communication is strongest during this phase (and is further strengthened by learning) as seen through a variety of analyses:
- Canonical correlation analysis over the two populations
- Functional connectivity analysis between interregional pairs of neurons
- Generalized linear mixed-effects model predicting communication strength from task performance