USTC Reveals Neural Mechanism of Light Perception Promotes Brain Development

The team of Professor Xue Tian and Bao Jin from the Department of Life Science and Medicine of the University of Science and Technology of China has made a breakthrough in exploring the neural mechanism of light perception to promote brain developme.

The sensory stimuli (including vision, hearing, touch, e.

Visual perception in mammals begins in the reti.

The researchers firstly knocked out Opn4, the gene encoding the photoreceptor protein of ipRGCs, and found that the neonatal mice lacking the photoreceptor ability of ipRGCs (Opn4 - / - ) had spontaneous small excitability in multiple sensory cortex and hippocampal pyramidal neurons in the early postnatal developme.

In order to further explore the circuits and molecular mechanisms by which the light perception of ipRGCs promotes cortical and hippocampal synaptogenesis, the researchers used mass spectrometry detection, neonatal mouse brain and retinal nerve tracing and regulation, and found that when ipRGCs were activated by light, they would pass through the reti.

To explore the effects of light-facilitated brain synapse development during early development on higher-level brain cognitive abilities in adulthood, the researchers trained mice to learn the correlation between different frequencies of sound stimulation and reward/punishment (Go/No-go behavior), It was found that the loss of photoreceptor in ipRGCs in childhood led to a significant decrease in the learning speed of mice in adulthood (F.

In conclusion, this study discovered the photoreceptors, neural circuits and molecular mechanisms that promote the coordinated development of neuronal synapses in high-level cognitive regions in early developmental visual (light) perception, and revealed the impact of early-developmental light perception on high-level cognition in the adult bra.

The research team said that in the next step, the team will continue to further explore the impact of light input in early development on mammalian health and survival, and provide scientific evidence for optimizing the environment for neonatal growth and developme.

Figure 1: Light perception mediated by ipRGCs in early development promotes synaptic synapses in different higher cognitive regions of the brain (cerebral cortex, hippocampus, e.

Figure 2: Light perception mediated by ipRGCs early in development enhances learning in adult mi.

(The schematic diagram was perfected by .

Doctoral student Hu Jiaxi, .

Paper link: https:// class="vsbcontent_end" >(Department of Life Sciences and Medicine)