Kira Poskanzer

Thanks to @ashleyingiosi.bsky.social for this thoughtful primer about our recent astrocyte/sleep paper!

🧠📈 Evidence is mounting for all the ways the astrocyte network—that “second brain” woven between neurons—integrates modulatory signals to shape neural dynamics & brain state.

It was awesome to collab on this investigation on the intricate interplay between histamine and other signals in astrocytes!

Top: Example confocal micrograph showing astrocyte expression of S100β (green), Cre-RFP (magenta), and H1R mRNA (cyan). Left: summed z-projection of all three confocal channels. Middle: RNAscope detected H1R mRNA with white and yellow arrows indicating example WT (S100β+/RFP−/H1R+) and cKO (RFP+/H1R−) soma regions of interest (ROIs), respectively. Right: Cre-RFP expression (top, magenta) and S100β expression (bottom, green). Scale bars = 10 μm. Bottom: Example confocal micrograph showing astrocytic Cre-RFP (magenta), neuronal NeuN (green), and nuclear marker DAPI (blue). Left: summed z-projection of all three confocal channels. Middle: astrocytic Cre-RFP signal with astrocyte soma ROIs overlaid. Right: NeuN signal with astrocyte soma ROIs overlaid. Scale bars = 50 μm.

What's the function of #histamine -1-receptors (H1Rs) on cortical astrocytes? @kiraposkanzer.bsky.social & co show that astrocytic H1R signaling modulates Ca2+ activity, extracellular adenosine & REM #sleep, revealing a key #astrocyte role in sleep-wake regulation @plosbiology.org 🧪 plos.io/4gRj9Ap

Back at you! 🥳

Really excited to see this work from my postgrad days come out of its "slumber" 💤 If you are interested in how astrocytes interact with neuromodulatory systems to regulate cortical states, this is for you!

Cortical astrocyte histamine-1-receptors regulate intracellular calcium and extracellular adenosine dynamics across sleep and wake While histamine-1-receptor (H1R) signaling in neurons regulates arousal, these receptors are also abundant on cortical astrocytes. This study shows that astrocytic H1R signaling modulates calcium acti...

Congrats to Charlotte Taylor and team for dissecting how astrocyte networks integrate histamine to modulate adenosine over sleep and wake in unexpected ways:

dx.plos.org/10.1371/jour...

@vincenttse.bsky.social @maxine.science @trishavv.bsky.social

Brainbow

Important to be very careful about ambient light. Definitely email for specific info, and I can connect you to first author Michelle, too.

Network-level encoding of local neurotransmitters in cortical astrocytes - Nature A study investigates subcellular, single-cell and network-level comunication within the astrocyte network in response to the two major neurotransmitter inputs.

We used it extensively for astrocyte stimulation here: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

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Fashion show outfit that looks like a Neuropixels probe

Pictures of Neuropixels probes

Fast, accurate, and versatile data analysis platform for the quantification of molecular spatiotemporal signals AQuA2 is a powerful data analysis platform that decomposes time-lapse imaging datasets into elementary signaling events, allowing for accurate quantification of spatiotemporal molecular activity patte...

Fast, accurate, and versatile data analysis platform for the quantification of molecular spatiotemporal signals: Cell www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...

It’s Hard to Believe How Cool These Dresses Are Illuminated, kaleidoscopic dresses at Anrealage made the case that we’re all walking billboards.

Watch the videos

Unexpected glia reference alert!

Capacitance compensation

Lipid droplets

YFP

Glia Accumulate Evidence that Actions Are Futile and Suppress Unsuccessful Behavior Whole-brain imaging in virtual-reality-immersed zebrafish reveals that failed swim attempts are detected by noradrenergic neurons, which drive glial cells that accumulate calcium until they trigger the suppression of further futile attempts.

And here’s a favorite from the @mishaahrens.bsky.social lab www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...

Norepinephrine links astrocytic activity to regulation of cortical state - Nature Neuroscience The authors show that norepinephrine signaling to astrocytes in the mouse visual cortex acts as a separate neuromodulatory pathway that regulates the effects of arousal on neuronal activity and cortic...

We (and lots of others) are recording astrocytes in vivo during behavior. Here’s one of our recent ones:

www.nature.com/articles/s41...