Biology subjects

Bice, A. R.

Publications and source records attributed to Bice, A. R..

4 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2021

Mecp2 deletion results in profound alterations of developmental and adult functional connectivity

As a regressive neurodevelopmental disorder with a well-established genetic cause, Rett Syndrome and its Mecp2 loss-of-function mouse model provide an excellent opportunity to define potentially translatable functional signatures of disease progression, as well as offer insight into Mecp2s role in functional circuit development. Thus, we applied optical fluorescence imaging to assess mesoscale calcium functional connectivity (FC) in the Mecp2 cortex prior to symptom onset as well as during decline. We found that FC was profoundly disrupted in Mecp2 males both in juvenile development and early adulthood. Female Mecp2 mice displayed a subtle homotopic contralateral increase in motor cortex as juveniles but not in adulthood, where instead parietal regions were implicated. Additionally, conditional rescue studies indicated FC phenotypes are driven by excitatory neurons. Altogether, the female results identify subtle candidate translatable biomarkers of disease progression, while the male results indicate MeCP2 protein is needed in a circuit-specific manner for FC.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2021

Sulfonylureas target the neurovascular response to decrease Alzheimer's pathology

Hyperexcitability is a defining feature of Alzheimers disease (AD), where aberrant neuronal activity is both a cause and consequence of AD. Therefore, identifying novel targets that modulate cellular excitability is an important strategy for treating AD. ATP-sensitive potassium (KATP) channels are metabolic sensors that modulate cellular excitability. Sulfonylureas are KATP channel antagonists traditionally used to combat hyperglycemia in diabetic patients by inhibiting pancreatic KATP channels, thereby stimulating insulin release. However, KATP channels are not limited to the pancreas and systemic modulation of KATP channels has pleotropic physiological effects, including profound effects on vascular function. Here, we demonstrate that human AD patients have higher cortical expression of vascular KATP channels, important modulators of vasoreactivity. We demonstrate that peripheral treatment with the sulfonylurea and KATP channel inhibitor, glyburide, reduced the aggregation and activity-dependent production of amyloid-beta (A{beta}), a hallmark of AD, in mice. Since glyburide does not readily cross the blood brain barrier, our data suggests that glyburide targets vascular KATP channel activity to reduce arterial stiffness, improve vasoreactivity, and normalize pericyte-endothelial cell morphology, offering a novel therapeutic target for AD. Graphical abstractTargeting vascular KATP channel activity for the treatment of Alzheimers disease pathology. O_FIG_DISPLAY_L [Figure 1] M_FIG_DISPLAY C_FIG_DISPLAY

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2021

Homotopic contralesional excitation suppresses spontaneous circuit repair and global network reconnections following ischemic stroke

Understanding circuit-level changes that affect the brains capacity for plasticity will inform the design of targeted interventions for treating stroke recovery. We combine optogenetic photostimulation with optical neuroimaging to examine how contralesional excitatory activity affects cortical remodeling after stroke in mice. Following photothrombosis of left primary somatosensory forepaw (S1FP) cortex, mice received chronic excitation of right S1FP, a maneuver mimicking the use of the unaffected limb during recovery. Contralesional excitation suppressed perilesional S1FP remapping and was associated with abnormal patterns of evoked activity in the unaffected limb. Contralesional stimulation prevented the restoration of resting-state functional connectivity (RSFC) within the S1FP network, RSFC in several networks functionally-distinct from somatomotor regions, and resulted in persistent limb-use asymmetry. In stimulated mice, perilesional tissue exhibited suppressed transcriptional changes in several genes important for recovery. These results suggest that contralesional excitation impedes local and global circuit reconnection through suppression of several neuroplasticity-related genes after stroke.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2021

Functional connectivity of the developing mouse cortex

Cross-sectional studies have established a variety of structural, synaptic and cell physiological changes corresponding to key critical periods in cortical development. However, the emergence of functional connectivity (FC) in development has not been fully characterized, and hemodynamic-based measures are vulnerable to any neurovascular coupling changes occurring in parallel. We therefore used optical fluorescence imaging to trace longitudinal calcium FC in the awake, resting-state mouse cortex in the same mice at 5 developmental time points beginning at postnatal day 15 (P15) and ending in early adulthood (P60), resulting in over 500 imaging epochs with both calcium and hemodynamics available as a resource for the field. Proof-of-principle analyses revealed that calcium FC displayed coherent functional maps as early as P15, and FC significantly varied in connections between many regions across development, with the developmental trajectorys shape specific to the functional region. This longitudinal developmental calcium FC dataset provides an essential resource for further algorithm development and studies of healthy development and neurodevelopmental disorders.

neuroscience↗