- Title
- An Island of Reil excitation: Mapping glutamatergic (vGlut1+ and vGlut2+) connections in the medial insular cortex
- Creator
- O'Shea, Mia Jessica; Anversa, Roberta Goncalves; Ch'ng, Sarah Sulaiman; Campbell, Erin Jane; Walker, Leigh Clasina; Andrews, Zane Bruce; Lawrence, Andrew John; Brown, Robyn Mary
- Relation
- Biochemical Pharmacology Vol. 230, Issue Part 2, no. 116637
- Publisher Link
- http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.bcp.2024.116637
- Publisher
- Elsevier
- Resource Type
- journal article
- Date
- 2024
- Description
- The insular cortex is a multifunctional and richly connected region of the cerebral cortex, critical in the neural integration of external stimuli and internal signals. Well-served for this role by a large network of afferent and efferent connections, the mouse insula can be simplified into an anterior, medial and posterior portion. Here we focus on the medial subregion, a once over-looked area that has gained recent attention for its involvement in an array of behaviours. Although the connections of medial insular cortex neurons have been previously identified, their precise glutamatergic phenotype remains undefined (typically defined by the presence of the subtype of vesicular glutamate transporters). Hence, we combined Cre knock-in mouse lines and adeno-associated viral tracing to distinguish between the expression of the two major vesicular glutamate transporters, type 1 (vGlut1) and 2 (vGlut2), in the subregion's neuronal inputs and outputs. Our results determined that the medial insula has extensive glutamatergic efferents expressing both vGlut1 and vGlut2 throughout the neuraxis. In contrast, a more conservative number of glutamatergic inputs were observed, with exclusively vGlut2+ projections received from hypothalamic and thalamic regions. Taken together, we demonstrate that vGlut1- and vGlut2-expressing networks of this insular subdivision have distinct connectivity patterns, including a greater abundance of vGlut1+ fibres innervating hypothalamic regions and the extended amygdala. These findings provide insight into the distinct chemo-architecture of this region, which may facilitate further investigation into the role of the medial insula in complex behaviour.
- Subject
- insular cortex; glutamatergic; viral tracing; vGlut1; vGlut2; cremouse lines
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1516621
- Identifier
- uon:57007
- Identifier
- ISSN:0006-2952
- Rights
- © 2024 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
- Language
- eng
- Full Text
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