Nested compressed co-representations of multiple sequential experiences during sleep.

Animals encounter and remember multiple experiences daily. During sleep, hippocampal neuronal ensembles replay past experiences and preplay future ones. Although most previous studies investigated p/replay of a single experience, it remains unclear how the hippocampus represents many experiences without major interference during sleep.

Efficient mapping of the thalamocortical monosynaptic connectivity in vivo by tangential insertions of high-density electrodes in the cortex.

The thalamus provides the principal input to the cortex and therefore understanding the mechanisms underlying cortical integration of sensory inputs requires to characterize the thalamocortical connectivity in behaving animals. Here, we propose tangential insertions of high-density electrodes into mouse cortical layer 4 as a method to capture the activity of thalamocortical axons simultaneously with their synaptically connected cortical neurons. This technique can reliably monitor multiple parallel thalamic synaptic inputs to cortical neurons, providing an efficient approach to map thalamocortical connectivity in both awake and anesthetized mice.

Retinal input integration in excitatory and inhibitory neurons in the mouse superior colliculus in vivo.

The superior colliculus (SC) is a midbrain structure that receives inputs from retinal ganglion cells (RGCs). The SC contains one of the highest densities of inhibitory neurons in the brain but whether excitatory and inhibitory SC neurons differentially integrate retinal activity in vivo is still largely unknown. We recently established a recording approach to measure the activity of RGCs simultaneously with their postsynaptic SC targets in vivo, to study how SC neurons integrate RGC activity.

Retinal waves align the concentric orientation map in mouse superior colliculus to the center of vision.

Neurons in the mouse superior colliculus (SC) are arranged in a concentric orientation map, which is aligned to the center of vision and the optic flow experienced by the mouse. The origin of this map remains unclear. Here, we propose that spontaneous retinal waves during development provide a scaffold to establish the concentric orientation map within the SC and its alignment to the optic flow.