BMI Distinguished Seminar // Kenneth Harris: Spike train structure of cortical transcriptomic populations in vivo

The cortex comprises many neuronal types, which can be distinguished by their transcriptomes: the sets of genes they express.  Little is known about the in vivo activity of these cell types, particularly as regards the structure of their spike trains, which might provide clues to cortical circuit function. 
 
To address this question, we used Neuropixels electrodes to record layer 5 excitatory populations in mouse V1, then transcriptomically identified the recorded cell types.  To do so, we performed a subsequent recording of the same cells using 2-photon (2p) calcium imaging, identifying neurons between the two recording modalities by fingerprinting their responses to a “zebra noise” stimulus and estimating the path of the electrode through the 2p stack with a probabilistic method.  We then cut brain slices and performed in situ transcriptomics to localize ~300 genes using coppaFISH3d, a new open source method, and aligned the transcriptomic data to the 2p stack.  
 
Analysis of the data is ongoing, and suggests substantial differences in spike time coordination between ET and IT neurons, as well as between transcriptomic subtypes of both these excitatory types.