Project description:The immune and nervous systems are highly interactive, however, little is known about how immune cells and their derived molecules impact brain function. Here we show that T cells play a critical role in retrieval of contextual fear conditioning (CFC) memory. Single-nuclei sequencing (snRNAseq) of engram neurons and non-engram neurons from the dentate gyrus one day after CFC learning revealed new evidence about differential expression of immune-related and synaptic plasticity-related genes, in SCID vs. wild-type mice. These findings present a comprehensive picture on how T cells and their derived cytokines could regulate memory retrieval and provide new insights into the nature of neuroimmune interactions at the transcriptional level in neurons. Overall, restoration of T cells or IL-4R signaling might lead to selective rescue of memory retrieval, and proffer a valuable strategy for treating memory loss.
Project description:The immune and nervous systems are highly interactive, however, little is known about how immune cells and their derived molecules impact brain function. Here we show that T cells play a critical role in retrieval of contextual fear conditioning (CFC) memory. Single-nuclei sequencing (snRNAseq) of engram neurons and non-engram neurons from the dentate gyrus one day after CFC learning revealed new evidence about differential expression of immune-related and synaptic plasticity-related genes, in SCID vs. wild-type mice. These findings present a comprehensive picture on how T cells and their derived cytokines could regulate memory retrieval and provide new insights into the nature of neuroimmune interactions at the transcriptional level in neurons. Overall, restoration of T cells or IL-4R signaling might lead to selective rescue of memory retrieval, and proffer a valuable strategy for treating memory loss.
Project description:The immune and nervous systems are highly interactive, however, little is known about how immune cells and their derived molecules impact brain function. Here we show that T cells play a critical role in retrieval of contextual fear conditioning (CFC) memory. Single-nuclei sequencing (snRNAseq) of engram neurons and non-engram neurons from the dentate gyrus one day after CFC learning revealed new evidence about differential expression of immune-related and synaptic plasticity-related genes, in SCID vs. wild-type mice. These findings present a comprehensive picture on how T cells and their derived cytokines could regulate memory retrieval and provide new insights into the nature of neuroimmune interactions at the transcriptional level in neurons. Overall, restoration of T cells or IL-4R signaling might lead to selective rescue of memory retrieval, and proffer a valuable strategy for treating memory loss.
