The cross-correlation http://www.selleckchem.com/products/BIBF1120.html between calcium activities and curvature was calculated using the following formula: equation(Equation 3) Cxy(τ)=〈Δx(t+τ)Δy(t)〉〈Δx2(t)〉〈Δy2(t)〉,where Δx(t) and Δy(t) are deviations of x and y from their respective means and 〈·〉 denotes the average over time. We used two optical setups to stimulate transgenic worms expressing Channelrhodopsin or Halorhodopsin. Experiments with the pneumatic microfluidic device (Figure 6A) were conducted on a Nikon microscope (Eclipse LV150) under

10× magnification with dark-field illumination. A mercury arc lamp with green filter and field diaphragm was used to illuminate the worm with controlled spot size. Rhodamine in the microfluidic channel (10 μM) allowed us to directly visualize the area and duration of green light illumination. Other optogenetic experiments were performed using a modified version of the CoLBeRT system (Leifer et al., 2011). See Supplemental

Information for a more detailed description. We are grateful to Christopher Gabel, Cornelia Bargmann, L. Mahadevan, and Yun Zhang for useful discussions; Gal Haspel and Netta Cohen for reading the manuscript; BMN 673 research buy Mason Klein for the help with spinning disk confocal microscopy; and Edward Pym and Zengcai Guo for sharing their strains. This work was supported by NIH Pioneer Award, NSF, and Harvard-MIT Innovation Fund. “
“The developing brain faces the challenge of wiring up billions of synapses that can vary significantly in their anatomy and functional properties depending on the identity of the pre- and postsynaptic cell types. In area CA1 of the hippocampus, CA3 Schaffer collateral (SC) axons target proximal dendrites, while temporoammonic (TA) axons from entorhinal cortex (EC) target the distal dendrites. Furthermore, the relative organization of these two classes of excitatory synaptic input has important consequences for how the dendrite processes incoming information to generate a specific output (Remondes and Schuman, 2002; Spruston, 2008). Such convergence of distinct classes of inputs onto a given cell is a general theme of the CNS. In order to generate specific patterns of connectivity between varieties

of cell types, the brain must have precise control over the formation of each class of synapse, Resminostat but the molecular mechanisms underlying this organization are only beginning to be understood. In this study, we demonstrate that the leucine-rich repeat (LRR)-containing protein netrin-G ligand-2 (NGL-2/Lrrc4) is critical for input-specific synapse development in CA1 pyramidal cells. The family of LRR proteins has recently generated attention for its role as synaptic organizer proteins (de Wit et al., 2011). For instance, LRRTM1 and LRRTM2 (de Wit et al., 2009; Ko et al., 2009; Linhoff et al., 2009; Siddiqui et al., 2010) were identified as synaptogenic proteins that interact with presynaptic neurexins. The family of LRR-containing proteins is large (Dolan et al.