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Cerebral Cortex Advance Access originally published online on November 23, 2006
Cerebral Cortex 2007 17(9):2204-2213; doi:10.1093/cercor/bhl127
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© The Author 2006. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Morphological, Electrophysiological, and Synaptic Properties of Corticocallosal Pyramidal Cells in the Neonatal Rat Neocortex

Jean-Vincent Le Bé1, Gilad Silberberg1,2, Yun Wang3 and Henry Markram1

1 Laboratory of Neural Microcircuitry, Brain Mind Institute, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Lausanne 1015, Switzerland, 2 Nobel Institute for Neurophysiology, Department of Neuroscience, Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden, 3 Division of Neurology Research, Caritas St Elizabeth's Medical Center, Tufts University, Boston, MA, USA

Address correspondence to email: henry.markram{at}epfl.ch

Neocortical pyramidal cells (PCs) project to various cortical and subcortical targets. In layer V, the population of thick tufted PCs (TTCs) projects to subcortical targets such as the tectum, brainstem, and spinal cord. Another population of layer V PCs projects via the corpus callosum to the contralateral neocortical hemisphere mediating information transfer between the hemispheres. This subpopulation (corticocallosally projecting cells [CCPs]) has been previously described in terms of their morphological properties, but less is known about their electrophysiological properties, and their synaptic connectivity is unknown. We studied the morphological, electrophysiological, and synaptic properties of CCPs by retrograde labeling with fluorescent microbeads in P13–P16 Wistar rats. CCPs were characterized by shorter, untufted apical dendrites, which reached only up to layers II/III, confirming previous reports. Synaptic connections between CCPs were different from those observed between TTCs, both in probability of occurrence and dynamic properties. We found that the CCP network is about 4 times less interconnected than the TTC network and the probability of release is 24% smaller, resulting in a more linear synaptic transmission. The study shows that layer V pyramidal neurons projecting to different targets form subnetworks with specialized connectivity profiles, in addition to the specialized morphological and electrophysiological intrinsic properties.

Key Words: corpus callosum • neocortex • pyramidal neurons • synaptic connections


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