Publications by authors named "Alyssa M Wilson"

Article Synopsis
  • - Substance use disorders (SUD) and drug addiction significantly impact public health, particularly among individuals and their communities, with a notable overlap between SUD and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infections.
  • - The connection between SUD and HIV is complex, as HIV can increase the risk of SUD through chronic pain treatment, while those with SUD are more likely to contract HIV, highlighting the need for integrated research.
  • - The SCORCH consortium aims to utilize single-cell genomics to examine the interactions between SUD and HIV at a cellular level, leveraging human brain tissue collections and animal models for in-depth study.
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The difficulty of retrieving high-resolution, in vivo evidence of the proliferative and migratory processes occurring in neural germinal zones has limited our understanding of neurodevelopmental mechanisms. Here, we used a connectomic approach using a high-resolution, serial-sectioning scanning electron microscopy volume to investigate the laminar cytoarchitecture of the transient external granular layer (EGL) of the developing cerebellum, where granule cells coordinate a series of mitotic and migratory events. By integrating image segmentation, three-dimensional reconstruction, and deep-learning approaches, we found and characterized anatomically complex intercellular connections bridging pairs of cerebellar granule cells throughout the EGL.

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Neurons in the developing brain undergo extensive structural refinement as nascent circuits adopt their mature form. This physical transformation of neurons is facilitated by the engulfment and degradation of axonal branches and synapses by surrounding glial cells, including microglia and astrocytes. However, the small size of phagocytic organelles and the complex, highly ramified morphology of glia have made it difficult to define the contribution of these and other glial cell types to this crucial process.

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Learning from experience depends at least in part on changes in neuronal connections. We present the largest map of connectivity to date between cortical neurons of a defined type (layer 2/3 [L2/3] pyramidal cells in mouse primary visual cortex), which was enabled by automated analysis of serial section electron microscopy images with improved handling of image defects (250 × 140 × 90 μm volume). We used the map to identify constraints on the learning algorithms employed by the cortex.

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Article Synopsis
  • A semi-automated reconstruction of the L2/3 region of the mouse primary visual cortex was created using electron microscopy images, capturing various cell types and structures important for understanding visual processing.
  • The data includes visual response characteristics of pyramidal cells and is available for public access, along with interactive tools for analysis.
  • Research highlights how the organization of mitochondria and synapses relates to cell location, while predicting connectivity patterns in pyramidal cells correlates with their visual response strength and reliability.
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During postnatal development, cerebellar climbing fibers alter their innervation strengths onto supernumerary Purkinje cell targets, generating a one-to-few connectivity pattern in adulthood. To get insight about the processes responsible for this remapping, we reconstructed serial electron microscopy datasets from mice during the first postnatal week. Between days 3 and 7, individual climbing fibers selectively add many synapses onto a subset of Purkinje targets in a positive-feedback manner, without pruning synapses from other targets.

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