Large-scale death of retinal astrocytes during normal development is non-apoptotic and implemented by microglia.

Naturally occurring cell death is a fundamental developmental mechanism for regulating cell numbers and sculpting developing organs. This is particularly true in the nervous system, where large numbers of neurons and oligodendrocytes are eliminated via apoptosis during normal development. Given the profound impact of death upon these two major cell populations, it is surprising that developmental death of another major cell type-the astrocyte-has rarely been studied. It is presently unclear whether astrocytes are subject to significant developmental death, and if so, how it occurs. Here, we address these questions using mouse retinal astrocytes as our model system. We show that the total number of retinal astrocytes declines by over 3-fold during a death period spanning postnatal days 5-14. Surprisingly, these astrocytes do not die by apoptosis, the canonical mechanism underlying the vast majority of developmental cell death. Instead, we find that microglia engulf astrocytes during the death period to promote their developmental removal. Genetic ablation of microglia inhibits astrocyte death, leading to a larger astrocyte population size at the end of the death period. However, astrocyte death is not completely blocked in the absence of microglia, apparently due to the ability of astrocytes to engulf each other. Nevertheless, mice lacking microglia showed significant anatomical changes to the retinal astrocyte network, with functional consequences for the astrocyte-associated vasculature leading to retinal hemorrhage. These results establish a novel modality for naturally occurring cell death and demonstrate its importance for the formation and integrity of the retinal gliovascular network.

Untangling the wires: development of sparse, distributed connectivity in the mushroom body calyx.

Appropriate perception and representation of sensory stimuli pose an everyday challenge to the brain. In order to represent the wide and unpredictable array of environmental stimuli, principle neurons of associative learning regions receive sparse, combinatorial sensory inputs. Despite the broad role of such networks in sensory neural circuits, the developmental mechanisms underlying their emergence are not well understood. As mammalian sensory coding regions are numerically complex and lack the accessibility of simpler invertebrate systems, we chose to focus this review on the numerically simpler, yet functionally similar, Drosophila mushroom body calyx. We bring together current knowledge about the cellular and molecular mechanisms orchestrating calyx development, in addition to drawing insights from literature regarding construction of sparse wiring in the mammalian cerebellum. From this, we formulate hypotheses to guide our future understanding of the development of this critical perceptual center.

Effects of Electrical Stimulation in the Inferior Colliculus on Frequency Discrimination by Rhesus Monkeys and Implications for the Auditory Midbrain Implant.

UNLABELLED: Understanding the relationship between the auditory selectivity of neurons and their contribution to perception is critical to the design of effective auditory brain prosthetics. These prosthetics seek to mimic natural activity patterns to achieve desired perceptual outcomes. We measured the contribution of inferior colliculus (IC) sites to perception using combined recording and electrical stimulation. Monkeys performed a frequency-based discrimination task, reporting whether a probe sound was higher or lower in frequency than a reference sound. Stimulation pulses were paired with the probe sound on 50% of trials (0.5-80 µA, 100-300 Hz, n = 172 IC locations in 3 rhesus monkeys). Electrical stimulation tended to bias the animals' judgments in a fashion that was coarsely but significantly correlated with the best frequency of the stimulation site compared with the reference frequency used in the task. Although there was considerable variability in the effects of stimulation (including impairments in performance and shifts in performance away from the direction predicted based on the site's response properties), the results indicate that stimulation of the IC can evoke percepts correlated with the frequency-tuning properties of the IC. Consistent with the implications of recent human studies, the main avenue for improvement for the auditory midbrain implant suggested by our findings is to increase the number and spatial extent of electrodes, to increase the size of the region that can be electrically activated, and to provide a greater range of evoked percepts. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT: Patients with hearing loss stemming from causes that interrupt the auditory pathway after the cochlea need a brain prosthetic to restore hearing. Recently, prosthetic stimulation in the human inferior colliculus (IC) was evaluated in a clinical trial. Thus far, speech understanding was limited for the subjects and this limitation is thought to be partly due to challenges in harnessing the sound frequency representation in the IC. Here, we tested the effects of IC stimulation in monkeys trained to report the sound frequencies they heard. Our results indicate that the IC can be used to introduce a range of frequency percepts and suggest that placement of a greater number of electrode contacts may improve the effectiveness of such implants.

Astrocytes follow ganglion cell axons to establish an angiogenic template during retinal development.

Immature astrocytes and blood vessels enter the developing mammalian retina at the optic nerve head and migrate peripherally to colonize the entire retinal nerve fiber layer (RNFL). Retinal vascularization is arrested in retinopathy of prematurity (ROP), a major cause of bilateral blindness in children. Despite their importance in normal development and ROP, the factors that control vascularization of the retina remain poorly understood. Because astrocytes form a reticular network that appears to provide a substrate for migrating endothelial cells, they have long been proposed to guide angiogenesis. However, whether astrocytes do in fact impose a spatial pattern on developing vessels remains unclear, and how astrocytes themselves are guided is unknown. Here we explore the cellular mechanisms that ensure complete retinal coverage by astrocytes and blood vessels in mouse. We find that migrating astrocytes associate closely with the axons of retinal ganglion cells (RGCs), their neighbors in the RNFL. Analysis of Robo1; Robo2 mutants, in which RGC axon guidance is disrupted, and Math5 (Atoh7) mutants, which lack RGCs, reveals that RGCs provide directional information to migrating astrocytes that sets them on a centrifugal trajectory. Without this guidance, astrocytes exhibit polarization defects, fail to colonize the peripheral retina, and display abnormal fine-scale spatial patterning. Furthermore, using cell type-specific chemical-genetic tools to selectively ablate astrocytes, we show that the astrocyte template is required for angiogenesis and vessel patterning. Our results are consistent with a model whereby RGC axons guide formation of an astrocytic network that subsequently directs vessel development.

Anatomy and spatial organization of Müller glia in mouse retina.

Müller glia, the most abundant glia of vertebrate retina, have an elaborate morphology characterized by a vertical stalk that spans the retina and branches in each retinal layer. Müller glia play diverse, critical roles in retinal homeostasis, which are presumably enabled by their complex anatomy. However, much remains unknown, particularly in mouse, about the anatomical arrangement of Müller cells and their arbors, and how these features arise in development. Here we use membrane-targeted fluorescent proteins to reveal the fine structure of mouse Müller arbors. We find sublayer-specific arbor specializations within the inner plexiform layer (IPL) that occur consistently at defined laminar locations. We then characterize Müller glia spatial patterning, revealing how individual cells collaborate to form a pan-retinal network. Müller cells, unlike neurons, are spread across the retina with homogenous density, and their arbor sizes change little with eccentricity. Using Brainbow methods to label neighboring cells in different colors, we find that Müller glia tile retinal space with minimal overlap. The shape of their arbors is irregular but nonrandom, suggesting that local interactions between neighboring cells determine their territories. Finally, we identify a developmental window at postnatal Days 6 to 9 when Müller arbors first colonize the synaptic layers beginning in stereotyped inner plexiform layer sublaminae. Together, our study defines the anatomical arrangement of mouse Müller glia and their network in the radial and tangential planes of the retina, in development and adulthood. The local precision of Müller glia organization suggests that their morphology is sculpted by specific cell to cell interactions with neurons and each other.

A perturbation solution of the mechanical bidomain model.

This research focuses on finding analytical solutions to the mechanical bidomain model for cardiac tissue. In particular, a perturbation expansion is used to analyze the equations, with the perturbation parameter being inversely proportional to the spring constant coupling the intracellular and extracellular spaces. The results indicate that the intracellular and extracellular pressures are not equal and that the two spaces can move relative to each other. This calculation is complicated enough to illustrate the implications of the mechanical bidomain model but is nevertheless simple enough to solve analytically. One application of the calculation is to the mechanical behavior of active cardiac tissue surrounding an ischemic region.