bioRxiv Science⌕ Search
Home/Archive/bioRxiv

bioRxiv · 10.1101/2025.06.24.661373

Spatial transcriptomic profiling of human paravertebral sympathetic chain ganglia reveals diabetes-induced neuroplasticity

Moreno, M. M.·Patel, P.·Goss, K.·Mian, S. M.·Nakisli, S.·Inturi, N. N.·Shiers, S.·Horton, P.·Cervantes, A.·Funk, G.·Khan, T.·Vines, E.·Klein, R. M.·Henze, D. A.·Tavares-Ferreira, D.·Price, T. J.·Yousuf, M. S.
View original source ↗Export metadata ↓

Abstract

The paravertebral sympathetic chain ganglia (SCG) are autonomic ganglia critical for regulating the "fight-or-flight" response. Symptoms of sympathetic dysfunction are prevalent in diabetes, affecting up to 90% of patients. The molecular and cellular composition of the human SCG and its alteration in diabetes remains poorly defined. To address this gap, we performed spatial transcriptomic profiling of lumbar SCGs from diabetic and non-diabetic organ donors. We identified 3 three distinct neuronal populations, two noradrenergic (NA1 and NA2) and one cholinergic (CHO), based on tyrosine hydroxylase (TH) and SLC18A3 expression, respectively. We also characterized 9 non-neuronal populations consisting of Schwann cells, immune cells, fibroblasts, adipocytes, and endothelial cells. In diabetic SCGs, we observed a significant loss of myelinating Schwann cells and a phenotypic shift of cholinergic neurons toward a noradrenergic identity. Additionally, diabetes was associated with a significant reduction in the transcripts of vasodilatory neuropeptides, such as VIP and CALCA, suggesting a mechanism for impaired vascular control. Upstream regulator analysis highlighted altered neurotrophic signaling in diabetes, with enhanced NGF/TRKA and diminished BDNF/TRKB activity, potentially driven by target-derived cues. Comparison between SCG and dorsal root ganglia (DRG) neurons revealed ganglia-specific genes, like SCN3A and NPY (SCG) versus SCN10A and GPX1 (DRG), offering specific therapeutic targets for autonomic dysfunction or pain. Our findings provide a transcriptomic characterization of human SCG, revealing molecular signatures that underlie diabetic autonomic dysfunction. This work lays a foundation for the development of therapies to restore sympathetic function and avoid unintended autonomic effects in the development of analgesics. Significance StatementAutonomic dysfunction affects up to 90% of people with diabetes, yet the human sympathetic nervous system remains poorly molecularly defined. To address this gap, we present a spatial transcriptomic profile of the human sympathetic chain ganglia (SCG), revealing how diabetes affects the human autonomic nervous system. We show that diabetes shifts the cholinergic neuronal population to a noradrenergic phenotype and reduces vasodilation neuropeptide expression, potentially explaining impaired vascular control and thermoregulation. Comparative analysis of sympathetic and sensory ganglia reveals distinct gene profiles that may inform novel therapeutic strategies. These findings offer critical insight into the molecular drivers of diabetic autonomic neuropathy and lay the groundwork for safer, more precise treatments that selectively modulate autonomic or sensory function in chronic disease.

Explore related subjects

neurosciencePreprint

Keep this discovery

Explore connections, maps & timelines

BibTeXRIS

Moreno, M. M., Patel, P., Goss, K., Mian, S. M., Nakisli, S., Inturi, N. N., Shiers, S., Horton, P., Cervantes, A., Funk, G., Khan, T., Vines, E., Klein, R. M., Henze, D. A., Tavares-Ferreira, D., Price, T. J., Yousuf, M. S.. 2025-06-25. Spatial transcriptomic profiling of human paravertebral sympathetic chain ganglia reveals diabetes-induced neuroplasticity. https://doi.org/10.1101/2025.06.24.661373

Cite the original work for its findings. Save a collection to share your selection of sources.

KEEP EXPLORING

Related preprints

bioRxiv2026

Same Movements, Different Skills: How Context Shapes Learning in Humans and Neural Networks

What determines whether experiences are integrated into shared representations or split? Motor skill learning offers a revealing test: when two tasks require an identical sequence of movements, both intuition and theory suggest that practice in one should generalize to the other. Yet we find that changing context can make identical movements different skills. In simple recurrent networks trained on the same sequence across contexts, splitting was greatest when strong contextual inputs coincided with a high initial weight scale; neither alone sufficed. Greater representational separation coincided with separate context-specific learning curves. Humans practicing the same finger sequence while alternating between two performance-irrelevant contexts likewise exhibited context-specific curves, rather than the single continuous trajectory observed when practicing in a single context. State-space modeling favored split learning states in humans and very weakly coupled states in the most context-dependent networks. These findings have broader implications for understanding how learning generalizes across contexts.

neuroscience↗
bioRxiv2026

Postpartum resource scarcity reshapes maternal care, offspring prioritization, and the steroid-sensitive medial preoptic area

Parental care requires balancing offspring needs with environmental constraints, yet how resource scarcity alters the organization of maternal responses remains poorly understood. Here, we examined maternal behavior, offspring prioritization, and steroid receptor-associated extracellular matrix organization in postpartum rats exposed to limited bedding and nesting (LBN) or control conditions with ample nesting materials. LBN increased pup-directed and reduced self-directed behaviors but also increased behavioral entropy, a measure of behavioral fragmentation, indicating less predictable caregiving sequences. LBN dams preferentially retrieved male pups first, whereas control dams preferentially retrieved females first. LBN also increased the proportion of pup-investigation time directed toward males compared with controls. In offspring on postnatal day 10, corticosterone was elevated in female but not male LBN pups, a pattern that paralleled the maternal male bias. To identify associated neurobiological changes, we assessed steroid receptors and extracellular matrix organization in the medial preoptic area (mPOA), a key region for maternal behavior. LBN increased numbers of estrogen receptor (ER)- and androgen receptor (AR)-immunoreactive cells, reduced perineuronal net (PNN) abundance, and decreased receptor-positive cell enwrapment. Because PNNs constrain structural plasticity, these findings suggest that the postpartum environment alters the organization of steroid receptor-associated extracellular matrix, potentially modulating experience-dependent plasticity in neurosteroid-sensitive circuits. In sum, LBN increases the levels of maternal engagement while reshaping its temporal organization and allocation, accompanied by selective remodeling of steroid-sensitive preoptic architecture. Therefore, maternal adaptation to adversity may be better understood as changes in caregiving allocation strategies rather than a simple gain or loss of maternal care.

neuroscience↗
bioRxiv2026

The Computational Grammar of Human Behaviour in a Biological Environment

Human behaviour unfolds as an extended stream of spontaneous actions shaped by environmental demands and the agent's goals. The organisation of these actions, situated between setting abstract goals and concrete movement execution, remains poorly characterised. Here, we introduce DynaClade, an unsupervised temporal action segmentation algorithm for human full-body motion capture data, and apply it to freely moving participants navigating ecologically realistic risky foraging environments in virtual reality. DynaClade identifies discrete actions whose kinematic characteristics and spatial distributions correspond to environmental affordances, supporting the validity of the approach. Among these actions, we discovered a hitherto undescribed movement pattern defined by increased body sway without locomotion. Action sequences were highly non-random and showed clear history dependence beyond first-order Markov structure, most of which was explained by a second-order prediction. This higher-order structure was well captured in a hidden Markov model, in which some of the observed actions were associated with more than one latent state. Each of these latent states corresponded to the same action in a distinct action context. These findings suggest that spontaneous human actions are predominantly selected based on the current action and context, rather than following pre-planned or habitually assembled sequences.

neuroscience↗