View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by PubMed Central ORIGINAL RESEARCH ARTICLE published: 20 October 2009 NEURAL CIRCUITS doi: 10.3389/neuro.04.015.2009 Depolarizing effect of neocortical chandelier neurons Alan Woodruff 1*, Qing Xu 2, Stewart A. Anderson 2 and Rafael Yuste1 1 Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Department Biological Sciences, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA 2 Department Psychiatry, Weill Cornell Medical College, New York, NY, USA Edited by: Chandelier (or axo-axonic) cells are one of the most distinctive types of GABAergic interneurons David Linden, Johns Hopkins in the cortex. Although they have traditionally been considered inhibitory neurons, data from University, USA rat and human neocortical preparations suggest that chandelier cells have a depolarizing effect Reviewed by: Gianmaria Maccaferri, Northwestern on pyramidal neurons at resting membrane potential, and could even activate synaptic chains University, USA of neurons. At the same time, recent results from rat hippocampal chandeliers indicate a Michael Brecht, Humboldt predominantly inhibitory effect on their postsynaptic targets. To better understand the function University Berlin, Germany of chandelier neurons, we generated Nkx2.1Cre MADM mice, a strain of genetically engineered *Correspondence: animals that, by expressing GFP in a subset of neocortical interneurons, enable the identifi cation Alan Woodruff, Department Biological Sciences, Columbia University, 1212 and targeting of chandelier cells in living brain slices. Using these mice, we characterized the Amsterdam Avenue, Box 2435, basic electrophysiological properties of a homogeneous population of chandelier neurons from New York, NY 10027, USA. upper layers of somatosensory cortical slices. These chandelier cells have characteristic axon e-mail:
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