Robyn Blan and Madeline Jereb, “Overlapping Neural Representations of Social Stimuli in the Lateral Entorhinal Cortex”
Mentor: Jeffrey Lopez-Rojas, Psychology, Letters & Science (College of)
Poster #52
Social recognition memory is crucial for navigating complex social environments and supports various aspects of social interactions. The entorhinal cortex is a brain region highly associated with social recognition memory, and the inputs from its lateral subregion, the lateral entorhinal cortex (LEC), to the dorsal CA2 layer of the hippocampus play a vital role in social memory formation. However, the specific LEC neuronal populations encoding social information remain poorly understood. We employed activity-dependent tet-tagging to isolate and characterize LEC neurons engaged during social exploration by injecting a tet-tagging viral construct into the LEC of C57BL/6J mice. Mice first explored a littermate, tagging active LEC neurons with a green fluorescent protein. Subsequently, mice were exposed to one of five conditions: the same littermate, a different littermate, a novel mouse, a novel object, or a control environment. Neurons activated during this second experience were identified by red c-Fos immunostaining. Finally, we compared the distribution and characteristics of the GFP and c-Fos tagged neurons within the LEC. Our preliminary results suggest that a specific subset of LEC neurons is consistently activated during social recognition tasks. These neurons show distinct patterns of localization and potentially form functional ensembles. This research provides new insights into the neural circuits underlying social recognition. Understanding these connections will help find targeted interventions for disorders linked with abnormalities of the LEC and CA2, such as autism spectrum disorders and schizophrenia, which are characterized by social cognitive deficits.