Depicting Primate-Like Granular Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex in the Chinese Tree Shrew
It remains unknown whether the Chinese tree shrew, regarded as the closest sister of primate, has evolved a dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) comparable with primates that is characterized by a fourth layer (L4) enriched with granular cells and reciprocal connections with the mediodorsal nucleus (MD). Here, we reported that following AAV-hSyn-EGFP expression in the MD neurons, the fluorescence micro-optical sectioning tomography revealed their projection trajectories and targeted brain areas, such as the hippocampus, the corpus striatum, and the dlPFC. Cre-dependent transsynaptic viral tracing identified the MD projection terminals that targeted the L4 of the dlPFC, in which the presence of granular cells was confirmed via cytoarchitectural studies by using the Nissl, Golgi, and vGlut2 stainings. Additionally, the L5/6 of the dlPFC projected back to the MD. These results suggest that the tree shrew has evolved a primate-like dlPFC which can serve as an alternative for studying cognition-related functions of the dlPFC.
Authors
- Qi‐Xin Zhou (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1995-5846)
- Jiang‐Ning Zhou (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1225-2873)
- Xiaoshan Xu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4363-392X)
- Jinnan Li (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0001-2600-956X)
- Zhao Feng (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5035-7655)
- Yuexiong Yang
- Lin Xu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2710-3507)
- Xiupeng Nie
- Chen Ma (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2095-013X)
- Hui Gong (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2389-7688)
- Min‐Hua Luo (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9352-0643)
- Fuqiang Xu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4382-9797)
- Wei J. Wang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4848-7394)
Institutions
- University of Science and Technology of China (CN)
- Kunming Institute of Zoology (CN)
- Anhui Medical University (CN)
- Chinese Academy of Sciences (CN)
- Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology (CN)
- Wuhan Institute of Virology (CN)
- Suzhou Research Institute (CN)
- First Affiliated Hospital of Anhui Medical University (CN)
- Wuhan National Laboratory for Optoelectronics (CN)
- Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology (CN)
- Jiangsu Industry Technology Research Institute (CN)
- University of Chinese Academy of Sciences (CN)
- Huazhong University of Science and Technology (CN)
Publication Details
- Journal
- eNeuro
- Published
- 2024-10-01
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1523/eneuro.0307-24.2024
- Primary Topic
- Neural dynamics and brain function
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00
Funders
- National Natural Science Foundation of China
- Chinese Academy of Sciences
- Ministry of Science and Technology of the People's Republic of China