Selective destruction of the portico-thalamic feedback pathway by use of photo-oxidation technique

2015 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 25430067
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: Neurochemistry/Neuropharmacology
• Research Institution: Maebashi Institute of Technology
• Principal Investigator: Imamura Kazuyuki 前橋工科大学, 工学部, 教授 (30203326)
• Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha): KATAOKA Yosuke 国立研究開発法人理化学研究所, 細胞機能評価研究チーム, チームリーダー (40291033)
• Project Period (FY): 2013-04-01 – 2016-03-31
• Keywords: 眼優位可塑性 / 両眼視 / 大脳視覚野 / 外側膝状体 / 光酸化 / フィードバック投射 / 逆行性標識 / ラット

Outline of Final Research Achievements

We have developed a new activity mapping method to study the ocular dominance (OD) plasticity by applying c-Fos immunohisitochemistry. This is a powerful method to apply to rats with smaller binocular regions. To investigate the functional roles of feedback projection from the primary visual cortex to the dorsal lateral geniculate nucleus (LGN), we challenged to apply the photo-oxidation induced apoptosis (i.e. targeted apoptosis). First, we electrophysiologically mapped the LGN and injected choline e6 into the appropriate region. After waiting retrograde transport of chlorin e6 to the layer 6 neurons in V1, the laser irradiation was applied to the cortex. We found that the target was damaged by photo-oxidation induced mechanism, although the best conditions of the amount of chlorin e6 and irradiation were remained to be elucidated. By use of this technique, we first succeeded to pave the way to study the roles of V1-LGN feedback system in the regulation of OD plasticity.

Free Research Field

神経科学