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"... Specifically, researchers examined the global neuron rewiring that occurs after a localized injury. They focused on the large population of interneurons in the cerebral cortex that expresses the neuropeptide somatostatin and plays an important role in the process of learning and memory storage. These interneurons are also particularly susceptible to cell death upon injury. ...
The peer-reviewed study examined experiments conducted on mice. An injury was produced in the hilus region of the hippocampus and its progress was tracked using a process called iDISCO, which uses solvents to make biological samples transparent thus making the entire brain much easier to illuminate and observe. ...
The team also explored the prefrontal cortex, a region that works together with the hippocampus. In all cases, they found that neurons at the injury site gain connections from neighboring nerve cells after injury, but become disconnected from the rest of the brain. ...
The peer-reviewed study examined experiments conducted on mice. An injury was produced in the hilus region of the hippocampus and its progress was tracked using a process called iDISCO, which uses solvents to make biological samples transparent thus making the entire brain much easier to illuminate and observe. ...
The team also explored the prefrontal cortex, a region that works together with the hippocampus. In all cases, they found that neurons at the injury site gain connections from neighboring nerve cells after injury, but become disconnected from the rest of the brain. ...
Interestingly, the long pathways for connection were still present in the injured brains, but they no longer connected with damaged neurons. So, researchers set about finding out if they could repair the connections and allow damaged neurons to reconnect with more distant regions of the brain. Their methods were based on an earlier study examining neuron transplantation.
The transplanted neurons received adequate connections, indicating that it may be possible to coax the brain into repairing lost connections on its own. ..."
From the abstract:
"Despite the fundamental importance of understanding the brain’s wiring diagram, our knowledge of how neuronal connectivity is rewired by traumatic brain injury remains remarkably incomplete. Here we use cellular resolution whole-brain imaging to generate brain-wide maps of the input to inhibitory neurons in a mouse model of traumatic brain injury. We find that somatostatin interneurons are converted into hyperconnected hubs in multiple brain regions, with rich local network connections but diminished long-range inputs, even at areas not directly damaged. The loss of long-range input does not correlate with cell loss in distant brain regions. Interneurons transplanted into the injury site receive orthotopic local and long-range input, suggesting the machinery for establishing distant connections remains intact even after a severe injury. Our results uncover a potential strategy to sustain and optimize inhibition after traumatic brain injury that involves spatial reorganization of the direct inputs to inhibitory neurons across the brain."
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