Jeanne Paz, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Neurology

UCSF Weill Institute for Neurosciences
University of California, San Francisco

Deconstructing GABAergic circuits in the thalamus and their role in regulating thalamocortical function

The reticular thalamic nucleus (nRT) is involved in perception, sensation, attention, consciousness and in generation of sleep spindle oscillations in thalamocortical networks. The nRT provides the GABAergic inhibitory input to the entire thalamus thus regulating thalamocortical circuit function. Although the GABAergic inhibition of the thalamus has been thoroughly studied, much less is known about the inhibitory tone within the nRT itself. Here we dissected two novel GABAergic pathways that powerfully control the firing of the GABAergic nRT neurons. Using optogenetics and circuit mapping we report the evidence of powerful regulation of nRT neuronal firing by two pathways: a feed-forward intra-nRT GABAergic synaptic inhibition and a non-canonical GABAergic input from basal ganglia’s external segment of the Globus Pallidus. Our findings may have an impact on how the nRT processes incoming information to influence thalamocortical function and behavior (unpublished work).

Faculty Host: Dr. Hey-Kyoung Lee