Central and peripheral monosynaptic, polysynaptic and collaterals connectivity in the rat
Oliver
Schmitt1*,
Peter
Eipert1,
Rene
Hoffmann2,
Paulinne
Morawska1,
Ann-Christin
Klünker1,
Jennifer
Meinhardt1,
Felix
Lessmann1,
Julia
Beier1,
Kanar
Kadir1,
Adrian
Karnitzki1,
Jörg
Jenssen1,
Lena
Kuch1,
Linda
Sellner1 and
Andreas
Wree1
-
1
University of Rostock, Anatomy, Germany
-
2
University of Rostock, Mathematics, Germany
Most stereotaxic tract-tracing studies were performed in the laboratory rat. Therefore, the most comprehensive knowledge of central and peripheral nervous system connectivity is available for this tetrapode vertebrate. The rat connectome project is a long term metastudy that aims to collate all connections described in peer reviewed articles documenting neuronal connections detected by stereotaxic tract-tracing techniques in juvenile and adult normal rats (non-genetically and non-experimentally modified). So far, connections of 4300 reports have been collated and currated by experts in neuroanatomy. These data, have been imported in the generic framework neuroVIISAS (http://neuroviisas.med.uni-rostock.de/) for advanced connectome analysis and simulation.
To combine the different granularities of the collated connections, an extensive hierarchy of parts of the nervous system of the rat was created, containing all the regions participating in the imported connections and distiguishing the different hemispheric parts. This hierarchical approach and the extend of collated data is unique and allows the most precise connectome analysis on different levels of granularity with regard to ipsi-, contra-, bi- and unilateral specifications of connections. The hierarchical terminology is directly related to brain regions defined in different stereoteaxic atlases of the rat central nervous system. 2D- and 3D-atlas data are directly available and are used to visualize connectivity spatially. In addition 223 single neuron parameters of the Senselab database (http://neuroelectro.org) have been related to types of neurons used in neuron models implemented in NEST. In neuroVIISAS an interface to NEST (http://www.nest-initiative.org) is available that allows to use all NEST neuron models and moduls of the simulation engine in combination with real world connectivity and neuron parameters. To complete the number of critical parameters of realistic simulations we will present first results of a high-throughput-high-resolution identification of single cells of a terabyte virtual-slide dataset.
For the first time, the rat connectome project also includes collateral connections from multi-tracer reports as well as pathways from transneuronal tract-tracing publications. This different type of connectivity data can be efficiently seperated from the conventional monosynaptic non-collateral one and integrated in population simulations. Currently the connectome consists of 232688 ipsi- and contralateral weighted (connection strength) and directed connections, completed by 2253 transneuronal pathways and 605 collateral sources.
In conclusion, a nearly complete collation of consistent multiscale connectivity data of a whole nervous system of the rat is available (http://neuroviisas.med.uni-rostock.de). The laboratory rat is a well known vertebrate of which a huge amount of neuroscientific data exist. Such an outstanding source of connectivity, neuroanatomical, neurophysiological and behavioral data could be a promising starting point for multimodal large scale simulations in order to understand cognition and behavior of a complex vertebrate nervous systems.
Keywords:
connectomics,
digital atlasing,
rat nervous system,
virtual slides,
computational neuroscience,
cell detection
Conference:
Neuroinformatics 2014, Leiden, Netherlands, 25 Aug - 27 Aug, 2014.
Presentation Type:
Demo, to be considered for oral presentation
Topic:
Digital atlasing
Citation:
Schmitt
O,
Eipert
P,
Hoffmann
R,
Morawska
P,
Klünker
A,
Meinhardt
J,
Lessmann
F,
Beier
J,
Kadir
K,
Karnitzki
A,
Jenssen
J,
Kuch
L,
Sellner
L and
Wree
A
(2014). Central and peripheral monosynaptic, polysynaptic and collaterals connectivity in the rat.
Front. Neuroinform.
Conference Abstract:
Neuroinformatics 2014.
doi: 10.3389/conf.fninf.2014.18.00058
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Received:
23 Apr 2014;
Published Online:
04 Jun 2014.
*
Correspondence:
Prof. Oliver Schmitt, University of Rostock, Anatomy, Rostock, 18057, Germany, schmitt@med.uni-rostock.de