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@PHDTHESIS{AmbradGiovannetti:162223,
author = {Ambrad Giovannetti, Eleonora},
title = {{H}ippocampal network and inhibitory neuron dysfunction in
age and disease},
school = {Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn},
type = {Dissertation},
reportid = {DZNE-2021-01292},
pages = {158 pages, 21 figures},
year = {2021},
note = {Dissertation, Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität
Bonn, 2021},
abstract = {Aging and Alzheimer' s disease (AD) are two highly
intertwined pathological processes. Indeed, one of the
highest risk factors for developing AD is age.
Mechanistically, it has been suggested that remodeling of
inhibitory neuron function causes the disruption of the
homeostatic excitatory/inhibitory balance that is at the
basis for effective information processing in the central
nervous system. In the hippocampus proper and medial
entorhinal cortex (MEC), a plethora of inhibitory neurons is
tailored to orchestrate input/output conversion in
excitatory neurons, thereby supporting hippocampal-dependent
cognitive processes, like episodic memory and navigation.
Furthermore, altered inhibitory function is a major
contributor to aberrant oscillatory activity recorded by
means of electroencephalograms and local field potentials
(LFP) in the hippocampal system of both aged and AD brains.
Hence, therapeutic approaches devoted to the restoration of
inhibitory tone, with the aim of normalizing oscillatory
correlates of cognitive processes, have emerged as a
strategy to counteract the deleterious effects of aging and
AD. In particular, theta and gamma oscillations have been
the preferred target of investigation and manipulation. None
the less, more evidence is required to understand how age
and AD impact oscillatory activity in the hippocampus and
MEC, and whether inhibitory neurons driven rhythmogenesis is
a viable strategy to alleviate the cognitive burden
associated with both conditions.Here, I probed the
hippocampal network of aged PV-Cre:: WT mice and their
APPswe/PS 1 dE9 (PV-Cre::APP/PSl) transgenic littermates,
used as model of familial AD. To do so, I employed LFP
recordings, and LFP recordings coupled with optogenetic
stimulation of local parvalbumin-positive (PV+) interneurons
in the CAI compartment of the hippocampus of awake, freely
moving animals. I showed that theta oscillations linearly
decrease with age in PV-Cre::WT animals, but not in
PV-Cre::APP/PSI mice, which is indicative of inhibitory
neuron dysfunction. Interestingly, theta-gamma coupling
measured as a modulation index (MI) in the stratum lacunosum
moleculare (SLM) was reduced in PV-Cre::APP/PSI animals,
showing that feedback communication between the hippocampus
and the MEC is altered. Besides, I detected an age-dependent
linear increase in the MI of PV -Cre:: WT animals, but not
in.PV-Cre::APP/PSI animals, indicating that age-related
network remodeling differs between healthy and AD
conditions. Next, I investigated the effects of
optogenetically stimulating hippocampal py+ neurons of aged
PV-Cre::WT and PV-Cre::APP/PS 1 mice during memory tasks
probing recognition-, working- and spatial memory. Here,
optogenetic stimulation of PV+ intemeurons in aged
PV-Cre::WT and PV-Cre::APP/PSl animals was sufficient to
rescue cognitive deficits of APP/PSl animals, but not WT
animals, in a spatial memory task. Furthermore, I showed
that somatostatin-positive (SOM+) long-range inhibitory
projections between the hippocampus and the MEC, a poorly
described neuronal population, are impaired in
SST-Cre::APP/PSI mice. This was concomitant with a reduction
of local SOM-immunoreactivity in the MEC. Potentially, the
structural and functional alterations of local and
long-range projecting SOM+ neurons underlie the alterations
of theta-gamma coupling observed in APP/PS 1 animals.The
results presented in this thesis thus contribute to the
existing knowledge about oscillatory aberrations in health
and disease. In addition, these results provide new
perspectives on the mechanisms that cause network
dysfunction and cognitive deficits in healthy and AD-like
conditions.},
cin = {AG Fuhrmann},
cid = {I:(DE-2719)1011004},
pnm = {352 - Disease Mechanisms (POF4-352)},
pid = {G:(DE-HGF)POF4-352},
experiment = {EXP:(DE-2719)LMF-20190308},
typ = {PUB:(DE-HGF)11},
urn = {urn:nbn:de:hbz:5-64273},
url = {https://pub.dzne.de/record/162223},
}