Mapping and Analysis of the Connectome of Sympathetic Premotor Neurons in the Rostral Ventrolateral Medulla of the Rat Using a Volumetric Brain Atlas.

ABSTRACT: Spinally projecting neurons in the rostral ventrolateral medulla (RVLM) play a critical role in the generation of vasomotor sympathetic tone and are thought to receive convergent input from neurons at every level of the neuraxis; the factors that determine their ongoing activity remain unresolved. In this study we use a genetically restricted viral tracing strategy to definitively map their spatially diffuse connectome. We infected bulbospinal RVLM neurons with a recombinant rabies variant that drives reporter expression in monosynaptically connected input neurons and mapped their distribution using an MRI-based volumetric atlas and a novel image alignment and visualization tool that efficiently translates the positions of neurons captured in conventional photomicrographs to Cartesian coor

SUBMITTER: Dempsey B 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5331070 | biostudies-literature | 2017

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature