If you are attending #SfN25, please join @amygleichman.bsky.social and I on Monday at 9PM for a casual social gathering to discuss all things non-neuronal!

Date: Monday, Nov 17th
Time: 9PM till close
Location: The Smoking Gun SD, 555 Market St.

All welcome, please free to spread the word!

Huge congrats @amygleichman.bsky.social on this phenomenal study, demonstrating regional differences in astrocyte responses to stroke and a key role for astrocytes in post-stroke angiogenesis and repair!

(see also - gorgeous astrocytes for fluorescence Friday)

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Even more strikingly, mice with impaired oligodendrogenesis exhibited much more spatial clustering of spine size decreases. This means the impact of spine decreases on the underlying dendrites and neurons is likely much greater in these mice than in controls.

To get at the structural basis for the decrease in visual cortex responses, we imaged dendritic spines in the visual cortex of adult mice following deprivation. Compared to control mice, mice with impaired adolescent oligodendrogenesis had more spines that decreased in size.

But in adult mice with impaired adolescent oligodendrogenesis, monocular deprivation induced a decrease in visual cortex responses, just like it does in adolescent mice! These data suggest that oligodendrocytes do, indeed, limit functional neuronal plasticity in adult cortex.

In adult mice, cortex responses to the deprived eye usually remain stable following monocular deprivation, unlike in adolescent mice, which decrease. That’s what we see in controls - no change in cortex activity (in response to contra eye visual stim) following deprivation.

We next asked whether adolescent oligodendrogenesis can in turn modulate experience-dependent neuronal plasticity, by genetically blocking oligodendrogenesis during adolescence. Surprisingly, doing so did not alter the density of OPCs, astrocytes, or microglia.

We first asked whether sensory experience during adolescence modulates oligodendrocyte maturation in visual cortex, and the answer is yes - oligodendrogenesis is lower in the contralateral cortex, compared to ipsilateral cortex, following adolescent monocular deprivation.

Stoked to share our new preprint reporting a critical role for adolescent oligodendrogenesis and myelination in limiting experience-dependent neuronal plasticity! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...