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Review
. 2017 Mar 7:11:11.
doi: 10.3389/fnana.2017.00011. eCollection 2017.

Pyramidal Neurons Are Not Generalizable Building Blocks of Cortical Networks

Jennifer I Luebke  1
Affiliations
Review

Pyramidal Neurons Are Not Generalizable Building Blocks of Cortical Networks

Jennifer I Luebke. Front Neuroanat. .

Abstract

A key challenge in cortical neuroscience is to gain a comprehensive understanding of how pyramidal neuron heterogeneity across different areas and species underlies the functional specialization of individual neurons, networks, and areas. Comparative studies have been important in this endeavor, providing data relevant to the question of which of the many inherent properties of individual pyramidal neurons are necessary and sufficient for species-specific network and areal function. In this mini review, the importance of pyramidal neuron structural properties for signaling are outlined, followed by a summary of our recent work comparing the structural features of mouse (C57/BL6 strain) and rhesus monkey layer 3 (L3) pyramidal neurons in primary visual and frontal association cortices and their implications for neuronal and areal function. Based on these and other published data, L3 pyramidal neurons plausibly might be considered broadly "generalizable" from one area to another in the mouse neocortex due to their many similarities, but major differences in the properties of these neurons in diverse areas in the rhesus monkey neocortex rules this out in the primate. Further, fundamental differences in the dendritic topology of mouse and rhesus monkey pyramidal neurons highlight the implausibility of straightforward scaling and/or extrapolation from mouse to primate neurons and cortical networks.

Keywords: comparative anatomy; dendrites; mouse; prefrontal cortex; rhesus monkey; spines; synapses; visual cortex.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Pyramidal neurons in V1 and FC (FR2) in the mouse (top panels) and V1 and LPFC of the rhesus monkey (bottom panels). (A) 4x photomicrographs of Nissl-stained coronal sections of mouse V1, mouse FC, rhesus monkey V1, rhesus monkey LPFC. (B) Representative reconstructions of L3 pyramidal neurons (filled with biocytin during recordings and then processed with Alexa-streptavidin and imaged using confocal microscopy) from mouse V1, mouse FC, rhesus monkey V1, and rhesus monkey LPFC (ventral bank of the principal sulcus). Note the significantly larger size of the layer 3 pyramdial neuron from monkey LPFC compared to monkey V1 while these neurons do not differ in size in the mouse. (C) 3D reconstructions of representative axo-spinous perforted synapses in neuropil of mouse V1, mouse FC, rhesus monkey V1, and rhesus monkey LPFC. Spines are shown in green, boutons in blue, and perforated synapses in purple. Note the significantly larger perforated synapse as well as spine and bouton in monkey LPFC compared to monkey V1; these ultrastructural features do not differ in size in the two cortical areas in the mouse. Scale bars = A: 1 cm; B: 100 μm; C: 0.5 μm. (A,B) adapted from Gilman et al. (2016) and (C) from Hsu et al. (in press).
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