A Designer AAV Variant Permits Efficient Retrograde Access to Projection Neurons

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Safety and tolerability of gene therapy with an adeno-associated virus (AAV) borne GAD gene for Parkinson's disease: an open label, phase I trial.

Michael G Kaplitt, Andrew Feigin, Chengke Tang … (2007)

Dopaminergic neuronal loss in Parkinson's disease leads to changes in the circuitry of the basal ganglia, such as decreased inhibitory GABAergic input to the subthalamic nucleus. We aimed to measure the safety, tolerability, and potential efficacy of transfer of glutamic acid decarboxylase (GAD) gene with adeno-associated virus (AAV) into the subthalamic nucleus of patients with Parkinson's disease. We did an open label, safety and tolerability trial of unilateral subthalamic viral vector (AAV-GAD) injection in 11 men and 1 woman with Parkinson's disease (mean age 58.2, SD=5.7 years). Four patients received low-dose, four medium-dose, and four high-dose AAV-GAD at New York Presbyterian Hospital. Inclusion criteria consisted of Hoehn and Yahr stage 3 or greater, motor fluctuations with substantial off time, and age 70 years or less. Patients were assessed clinically both off and on medication at baseline and after 1, 3, 6, and 12 months at North Shore Hospital. Efficacy measures included the Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale (UPDRS), scales of activities of daily living (ADL), neuropsychological testing, and PET imaging with 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose. The trial is registered with the ClinicalTrials.gov registry, number NCT00195143. All patients who enrolled had surgery, and there were no dropouts or patients lost to follow-up. There were no adverse events related to gene therapy. Significant improvements in motor UPDRS scores (p=0.0015), predominantly on the side of the body that was contralateral to surgery, were seen 3 months after gene therapy and persisted up to 12 months. PET scans revealed a substantial reduction in thalamic metabolism that was restricted to the treated hemisphere, and a correlation between clinical motor scores and brain metabolism in the supplementary motor area. AAV-GAD gene therapy of the subthalamic nucleus is safe and well tolerated by patients with advanced Parkinson's disease, suggesting that in-vivo gene therapy in the adult brain might be safe for various neurodegenerative diseases.

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A motor cortex circuit for motor planning and movement.

Nuo Li, Tsai-Wen Chen, Zengcai Guo … (2015)

Activity in motor cortex predicts specific movements seconds before they occur, but how this preparatory activity relates to upcoming movements is obscure. We dissected the conversion of preparatory activity to movement within a structured motor cortex circuit. An anterior lateral region of the mouse cortex (a possible homologue of premotor cortex in primates) contains equal proportions of intermingled neurons predicting ipsi- or contralateral movements, yet unilateral inactivation of this cortical region during movement planning disrupts contralateral movements. Using cell-type-specific electrophysiology, cellular imaging and optogenetic perturbation, we show that layer 5 neurons projecting within the cortex have unbiased laterality. Activity with a contralateral population bias arises specifically in layer 5 neurons projecting to the brainstem, and only late during movement planning. These results reveal the transformation of distributed preparatory activity into movement commands within hierarchically organized cortical circuits.

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Why neurons mix: high dimensionality for higher cognition.

Stefano Fusi, Earl Miller, Mattia Rigotti (2016)

Neurons often respond to diverse combinations of task-relevant variables. This form of mixed selectivity plays an important computational role which is related to the dimensionality of the neural representations: high-dimensional representations with mixed selectivity allow a simple linear readout to generate a huge number of different potential responses. In contrast, neural representations based on highly specialized neurons are low dimensional and they preclude a linear readout from generating several responses that depend on multiple task-relevant variables. Here we review the conceptual and theoretical framework that explains the importance of mixed selectivity and the experimental evidence that recorded neural representations are high-dimensional. We end by discussing the implications for the design of future experiments.