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Hemisphere-specific optogenetic stimulation reveals left-right asymmetry of hippocampal plasticity

Nature Neuroscience volume 14, pages 1413–1415 (2011)Cite this article

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A Corrigendum to this article was published on 23 November 2011

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Abstract

Postsynaptic spines at CA3-CA1 synapses differ in glutamate receptor composition according to the hemispheric origin of CA3 afferents. To study the functional consequences of this asymmetry, we used optogenetic tools to selectively stimulate axons of CA3 pyramidal cells originating in either left or right mouse hippocampus. We found that left CA3 input produced more long-term potentiation at CA1 synapses than right CA3 input as a result of differential expression of GluN2B subunit–containing NMDA receptors.

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Figure 1: Optogenetics enables selective stimulation of CA3 afferents ex vivo.
Figure 2: Hemispheric asymmetry of t-LTP at the CA3-CA1 pyramidal cell synapse.
Figure 3: Asymmetric expression of GluN2B-containing NMDARs underlies hemispheric differences in t-LTP.

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  • 13 October 2011

    In the version of this article initially published, the schematics, traces and graphs in Figures. 2d and 2e were interchanged. The error has been corrected in the HTML and PDF versions of this article.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank D. Paterson for providing surgery facilities, and D. Kätzel and L. Upton for help with immunohistochemistry. This research was supported by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council and the Wellcome Trust (OXION Initiative). An equipment grant from the EPA Cephalosporin Fund is gratefully acknowledged.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physiology, Development and Neuroscience, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK

    Michael M Kohl, Olivia A Shipton & Ole Paulsen

  2. Department of Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK

    Michael M Kohl, Olivia A Shipton & Ole Paulsen

  3. Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK

    Robert M Deacon & J Nicholas P Rawlins

  4. Department of Bioengineering, Stanford University, Stanford, California, USA

    Karl Deisseroth

Authors
  1. Michael M Kohl
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  2. Olivia A Shipton
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  3. Robert M Deacon
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  4. J Nicholas P Rawlins
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  5. Karl Deisseroth
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  6. Ole Paulsen
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Contributions

M.M.K. conducted the experiments and analyzed the data. O.A.S. contributed recordings. M.M.K. and R.M.D. injected the animals. J.N.P.R. provided advice on the project. K.D. designed and cloned the AAV DIO ChR2-YFP vector. M.M.K. and O.P. designed the experiments. M.M.K., O.A.S. and O.P. wrote the manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Ole Paulsen.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Supplementary Figures 1 and 2, Supplementary Table 1, and Supplementary Methods (PDF 546 kb)

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Kohl, M., Shipton, O., Deacon, R. et al. Hemisphere-specific optogenetic stimulation reveals left-right asymmetry of hippocampal plasticity. Nat Neurosci 14, 1413–1415 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/nn.2915

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