Compare changes in neural ensembles and network activity

Neural Activity Mapping

Use Case: Compare changes in neural ensembles and network activity

  • Create epoch-specific activity maps: Quantitate cFos expression in all brain regions in order to create behavior epoch-specific activity maps that can be used to identify brain regions that have correlated or contrasting neural activity.
  • Examine cause and effect: Plot changes in cFos+ network density in response to loss-of-function / gain-of-function gene mutations or optogenetically / chemogenetically-manipulated neural circuits. 
  • Track dynamic changes to activity maps: Follow the trajectory of neural ensemble recruitment in an immediate early gene-dependent fashion in response to acute sustained, repeated drug exposure. 
Roy et al. Nature Communications 13, 1799 (2022) - Figure 1
Roy et al. Nature Communications 13, 1799 (2022) - Figure 1

Figure 1 (Ref 1): (a) Fos-TRAP mice crossed with a Cre-dependent tdTomato reporter mouse line to prepare three behavioral cohorts: home cage, contextual fear conditioning, and fear memory recall. Brain samples were used for SHIELD processing, SPIM imaging, 3D reconstructions, automatic brain region segmentation, and automatic single activated-cell detection. (b) Representative brain-wide activity mapping results, where the behavioral groups are normalized to home cage data and individual values indicate fold increases in the numbers of activated neurons relative to home cage. (c) 3D rendering of four brain regions showing automatically segmented activated neuronal populations along with corresponding heat maps. Article licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons CC-BY.

For additional publications supporting this use case refer to:

  1. Roy et al. Nature Communications 13, 1799 (2022) – Figures 1-6
  2. Brown et al. Frontiers in Psychiatry 15:1365231 (2024) – Figures 4, 5, Table 1
  3. Dorst et al. Journal of Neuroscience 44(2):e0340232023 (2024) – Figures 1a,1b, 5, 6, 7
  4. Soto et al. Neuron 112(20):3412-3423.e6 (2024) – Figure 3a
  5. Thibeault et al. Biological Psychiatry S0006-3223(24)01388-X (2024) – Figure 1
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