Theta band optogenetic stimulation of the septo‐hippocampal fibres in the fornix reduces interictal spikes and rescues memory performance in hAPP‐j20 mice
Bibliographic record
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Altered neuronal timing and synchrony are biomarkers for Alzheimer's disease (AD) and correlate with memory impairments. Electrical stimulation of the fornix, the main fibre bundle connecting the hippocampus to the septum, has emerged as a potential intervention to restore network synchrony and memory performance in human AD and mouse models. However, electrical stimulation is non-specific and may partially explain why fornix stimulation in AD patients has yielded mixed results. We hypothesize that driving the specific circuits underlying rhythmicity within the fornix via optogenetics at the biologically relevant theta rhythm (5Hz) will stabilize septo-hippocampal network timing in an AD mouse model (hAPP-j20) to alleviate hypersynchronous interictal spikes (IS) and restore memory performance. METHODS: GABAergic neurons in the septum were transfected with the excitatory opsin ChETA (or eYFP controls) in J20+/+ or J20± littermate controls. An optical fibre was placed above the fornix to limit excitation to the projection fibres and recording electrodes were placed in CA1 to measure network oscillations. 5Hz stimulation was applied continuously for 4 hours following the encoding phase of either novel-object-location or passive contextual avoidance memory tasks. We also combined in vivo calcium imaging with electrical recordings in CA1 to monitor network activity to determine how IS shape hippocampal cell assemblies in J20+/+ mice without fornix stimulation. RESULTS: Interictal spikes were present in sleep in J20+/+ mice, and at a higher rate during REM (4.78/min) compared to slow-wave (1.76/min; n = 11, p<0.001, one-way ANOVA). J20+eYFP controls displayed a strong negative correlation between the rate of IS and memory recall score (n = 9, r = -0.62, p = 0.015). 5Hz optical fornix stimulation reduced the occurrence of IS in REM both during stimulation and 4hrs post-stimulation (n = 11, p = 0.024, repeated measures ANOVA). Continuous 4-hour theta stimulation between the encoding and recall phases of both memory tasks rescued J20+ChETA performance to levels comparable with healthy controls while J20+eYFP mice performed at the chance level (n = 9-10 per group, p = 0.017, two-way mixed ANOVA). CONCLUSION: These data validate theta band optical stimulation as a viable method to pace the septo-hippocampal network effectively reducing IS events and recovering memory performance in an APP mouse model.
Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.
How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".