Mini-Barrel region of the somatosensory area may have morphological features that indicate unexpected significance of the region in cortical processing

2017 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 15K14334
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Exploratory Research
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Nerve anatomy/Neuropathology
• Research Institution: Kumamoto University
• Principal Investigator: Fukuda Takaichi 熊本大学, 大学院生命科学研究部(医), 教授 (50253414)
• Co-Investigator(Renkei-kenkyūsha): SHIGEMATSU Naoki 熊本大学, 大学院生命科学研究部, 助教 (30469613)
• Project Period (FY): 2015-04-01 – 2018-03-31
• Keywords: 体性感覚野 / バレル / ギャップ結合 / GABA / パルブアルブミン / インターニューロン

Outline of Final Research Achievements

Barrel area in rodents has well-ordered structure that facilitates investigation of the cerebral cortex, but I noticed further significance of the neighboring “mini-barrel region”, where processing of information from miniature vibrissae should occur with higher resolution, just as processing of retinal information from the fovea centralis. Thus I examined structural organization of parvabumin (PV)-positive interneurons in layer 4 of the mini-barrel region in mice and compared it with that in barrels. The analysis has shown that the density of PV neurons in mini-barrels is significantly higher than that in barrels, supporting the hypothesis of high-resolution regulatory mechanism in mini-barrels. Simultaneous analysis in barrels further revealed that PV neurons in layer 4 are categorized into 4 subtypes and that gap junctions interconnect different subtypes with connectivity unique to each subtype, indicating the presence of novel organized architecture for somatosensory processing.

Free Research Field

神経解剖学