RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Aberrant Cortical Activity in Multiple GCaMP6-Expressing Transgenic Mouse Lines
JF eneuro
JO eNeuro
FD Society for Neuroscience
SP ENEURO.0207-17.2017
DO 10.1523/ENEURO.0207-17.2017
VO 4
IS 5
A1 Steinmetz, Nicholas A.
A1 Buetfering, Christina
A1 Lecoq, Jerome
A1 Lee, Christian R.
A1 Peters, Andrew J.
A1 Jacobs, Elina A. K.
A1 Coen, Philip
A1 Ollerenshaw, Douglas R.
A1 Valley, Matthew T.
A1 de Vries, Saskia E. J.
A1 Garrett, Marina
A1 Zhuang, Jun
A1 Groblewski, Peter A.
A1 Manavi, Sahar
A1 Miles, Jesse
A1 White, Casey
A1 Lee, Eric
A1 Griffin, Fiona
A1 Larkin, Joshua D.
A1 Roll, Kate
A1 Cross, Sissy
A1 Nguyen, Thuyanh V.
A1 Larsen, Rachael
A1 Pendergraft, Julie
A1 Daigle, Tanya
A1 Tasic, Bosiljka
A1 Thompson, Carol L.
A1 Waters, Jack
A1 Olsen, Shawn
A1 Margolis, David J.
A1 Zeng, Hongkui
A1 Hausser, Michael
A1 Carandini, Matteo
A1 Harris, Kenneth D.
YR 2017
UL http://www.eneuro.org/content/4/5/ENEURO.0207-17.2017.abstract
AB Transgenic mouse lines are invaluable tools for neuroscience but, as with any technique, care must be taken to ensure that the tool itself does not unduly affect the system under study. Here we report aberrant electrical activity, similar to interictal spikes, and accompanying fluorescence events in some genotypes of transgenic mice expressing GCaMP6 genetically encoded calcium sensors. These epileptiform events have been observed particularly, but not exclusively, in mice with Emx1-Cre and Ai93 transgenes, of either sex, across multiple laboratories. The events occur at >0.1 Hz, are very large in amplitude (>1.0 mV local field potentials, >10% df/f widefield imaging signals), and typically cover large regions of cortex. Many properties of neuronal responses and behavior seem normal despite these events, although rare subjects exhibit overt generalized seizures. The underlying mechanisms of this phenomenon remain unclear, but we speculate about possible causes on the basis of diverse observations. We encourage researchers to be aware of these activity patterns while interpreting neuronal recordings from affected mouse lines and when considering which lines to study.