Dopamine is a critical modulator of brain circuits that control voluntary movements. However, its influence on the activity of target neurons in vivo remains limited. In this study, two-photon microscopy was used to monitor the activity of direct and indirect-pathway spiny projection neurons (SPNs) simultaneously in the striatum of behaving mice. The striatum mainly consists of two large populations...

The dorsal root ganglia (DRG) are the first-order neurons in the somatosensory system. However, DRG neuronal activity in awake behaving animals remains unknown. This study developed a method for imaging DRG at cellular and subcellular resolution over weeks in awake mice. They installed an intervertebral fusion mount to reduce spinal movement and implanted a vertebral glass window without interfering...

This study examined to what extent parental animals are intrinsically sensitive to neonatal vocalizations, or instead learn about vocal cues for parenting responses. In mice, naive virgins do not recognize the meaning of pup distress calls, but retrieve isolated pups to the nest following cohousing with a mother and litter. For this study, C57BL/6J virgin females were used in all experiments. The dataset...

Cortical inhibitory and excitatory inputs are initially mismatched, but become balanced with experience during development. However, how excitatory-inhibitory balance is defined at most synapses, or the mechanisms for maintaining this balance at specific set-points is still unclear. This study demonstrated how coordinated long-term plasticity calibrates populations of excitatory/inhibitory inputs onto...

Sensory input arrives from thalamus in cortical layer (L) 4 and L4 to L2 constitutes one of the earliest cortical feedforward networks. However, the transformation performed by this network remains unknown. This study used two-photon calcium imaging to record neural activity in L2 to L4 of primary vibrissal somatosensory cortex as mice perform an object localization task with two whiskers. For this...

Previous studies showed an abundance of functional Connexin43 (Cx43) hemichannels consequent to loss of plakophilin-2 (PKP2) expression in adult murine hearts. This study combined pre-embedding immunolabeling with serial block-face scanning electron microscopy (SBF-SEM) to visualize and examine the gap junction plaque morphology. They used a murine model of cardiomyocyte-specific Tamoxifen (TAM) activated...

Animals frequently combine odor cues about source identity with wind direction cues about source location to navigate towards a food source. However, where and how these two cues are integrated to support navigation remains unknown. This study described a pathway to the Drosophila fan-shaped body that encodes attractive odor and promotes upwind navigation. Behavioral experiments were performed in a...

Hippocampal activity supports internal representation of learned experiences and contexts, which allows individuals to form long-term memories. This study investigated hippocampal maps formed under structured attention with learning rules stabilize and maintain task-selectivity during memory recall. They used longitudinal two-photon imaging of hundreds of hippocampal CA1 pyramidal neurons while mice...

Fluoride is a naturally occurring mineral that helps build strong teeth and prevent cavities. However, excessive fluoride intake causes dental fluorosis, which are enamel defects that can increase the risk of tooth decay. This study examined the effects of fluoride exposure in enamel cells to assess its impact on calcium signaling. For their investigation, they isolated primary EO cells from Sprague...

This study described the function of the Ca2+ channel ORAI1 as an important regulator of oral cancer pain. Previous study showed that ORAI1 was highly expressed in tumor samples from patients with oral cancer. ORAI1 activation caused sustained Ca2+ influx in human oral cancer cells. They analyzed the expression of ORAI1 in the human oral squamous cell carcinoma cell lines HSC-3 and SCC-9, in the dysplastic...