Abstract
In the developing and adult brain, oligodendrocyte precursor cells (OPCs) are influenced by neuronal activity: they are involved in synaptic signaling with neurons, and their proliferation and differentiation into myelinating glia can be altered by transient changes in neuronal firing. An important question that has been unanswered is whether OPCs can discriminate different patterns of neuronal activity and respond to them in a distinct way. Here, we demonstrate in brain slices that the pattern of neuronal activity determines the functional changes triggered at synapses between axons and OPCs. Furthermore, we show that stimulation of the corpus callosum at different frequencies in vivo affects proliferation and differentiation of OPCs in a dissimilar way. Our findings suggest that neurons do not influence OPCs in "all-or-none" fashion but use their firing pattern to tune the response and behavior of these nonneuronal cells.
MeSH terms
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Adult Stem Cells / cytology
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Adult Stem Cells / physiology*
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Animals
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Axons / physiology
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Calcium Signaling
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Cell Proliferation
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Corpus Callosum / cytology
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Corpus Callosum / physiology*
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Immunohistochemistry
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Male
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Mice, Transgenic
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Microglia / cytology
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Microglia / physiology
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Microscopy, Confocal
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Neurogenesis*
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Oligodendroglia / cytology
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Oligodendroglia / physiology*
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Patch-Clamp Techniques
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Random Allocation
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Synapses / physiology
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Synaptic Potentials
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Synaptic Transmission*
Grants and funding
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft
http://www.dfg.de (grant number EXC307). MK received funding for her research group and for this work from the Werner Reichardt Centre for Integrative Neuroscience (CIN) at the Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen. The CIN is an Excellence Cluster funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) within the framework of the Excellence Initiative (EXC 307). The funder had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft
http://www.dfg.de (grant number KU2569/1-1). Received by MK. The funder had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.