SLICE CULTURES OF THE IMPRINTING-RELEVANT FOREBRAIN AREA MEDIO-ROSTRAL NEOSTRIATUM HYPERSTRIATUM VENTRALE OF THE DOMESTIC CHICK - IMMUNOCYTOCHEMICAL CHARACTERIZATION OF NEURONS CONTAINING CA2-BINDING PROTEINS()
K. Braun et al., SLICE CULTURES OF THE IMPRINTING-RELEVANT FOREBRAIN AREA MEDIO-ROSTRAL NEOSTRIATUM HYPERSTRIATUM VENTRALE OF THE DOMESTIC CHICK - IMMUNOCYTOCHEMICAL CHARACTERIZATION OF NEURONS CONTAINING CA2-BINDING PROTEINS(), Journal of chemical neuroanatomy, 10(1), 1996, pp. 41-51
The forebrain area medio-rostral neostriatum/hyperstriatum ventrale, a
presumed analogue to the mammalian prefrontal cortex, displays a vari
ety of synaptic changes during auditory filial imprinting. In order to
study the underlying basic mechanisms of this synaptic plasticity we
developed slice cultures of the medio-rostral neostriatum/hyperstriatu
m ventrale from newly hatched chicks. As a prerequisite for these inve
stigations and in order to test the suitability of this system for fut
ure studies, we performed a thorough characterization of the in vitro
tissue, of its cellular components and some of their biochemical featu
res in comparison with in situ tissue. Since in situ the medio-rostral
neostriatum/hyperstriatum ventrale has been previously shown to conta
in three distinct neuron populations characterized by the activity-reg
ulated Ca2+-binding proteins parvalbumin, calbindin D28K and calretini
n, we used these proteins as neuronal markers to study the survival an
d preservation of the morphological features of medio-rostral neostria
tum/hyperstriatum ventrale neurons in vitro, In agreement with in vivo
studies the three Ca2+-binding proteins are confined to neuronal cell
s and they are not colocalized, i.e, they appear to characterize three
different neuron populations. The immunoreactive neurons in medio-ros
tral neostriatum/hyperstriatum ventrale cultures to a certain extent a
ppear to form synaptic contacts with each other, shown by the double i
mmuncytochemical experiments, One difference between cells in vivo and
in vitro is their soma size, which is much larger in vitro than in vi
vo, This and our previous study on neuronal morphology demonstrates th
at morphologically and biochemically intact neurons can be maintained
in medio-rostral neostriatum/hyperstriatum ventrale slice cultures, wh
ich may thus provide a suitable in vitro system for further studies of
neuronal and synaptic plasticity in vitro.