Uploaded April 2021 | Updated September 2026, 5 hours ago
Cell Types as Building Blocks of Neural Circuits
Joshua Sanes, Harvard University
Abstract: Classification of neurons was a major preoccupation of Cajal, but later came to be viewed as a fairly boring enterprise. Over the past few decades, however, inability to define neuronal types emerged as a major bottleneck in analysis of neural circuits and brain disorders. The introduction of high throughput single cell RNAseq in 2015 provided a new way to approach this problem. I will describe its use to generate an atlas of 130 cell types from mouse retina, a particularly accessible part of the brain, and then show how the atlas can be used to probe development, function and dysfunction in new ways: (1) Profiling embryonic retinal ganglion cells (RGCs) to learn how they diversify into ~45 types. (2) Analyzing RGC types following damage to demonstrate dramatic differences in their resilience to injury and identify genes that contribute to resilience. (3) Generating primate retinal atlases and using them to assess expression of genes implicated in blinding diseases. (4) Probing the evolution of cell types by profiling cells from many vertebrate species.
Cell Types as Building Blocks of Neural Circuits
Joshua Sanes, Harvard University
Abstract: Classification of neurons was a major preoccupation of Cajal, but later came to be viewed as a fairly boring enterprise. Over the past few decades, however, inability to define neuronal types emerged as a major bottleneck in analysis of neural circuits and brain disorders. The introduction of high throughput single cell RNAseq in 2015 provided a new way to approach this problem. I will describe its use to generate an atlas of 130 cell types from mouse retina, a particularly accessible part of the brain, and then show how the atlas can be used to probe development, function and dysfunction in new ways: (1) Profiling embryonic retinal ganglion cells (RGCs) to learn how they diversify into ~45 types. (2) Analyzing RGC types following damage to demonstrate dramatic differences in their resilience to injury and identify genes that contribute to resilience. (3) Generating primate retinal atlases and using them to assess expression of genes implicated in blinding diseases. (4) Probing the evolution of cell types by profiling cells from many vertebrate species.
