Monosynaptic Premotor Circuit Tracing Reveals Neural Substrates for Oro-Motor Coordination
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1 Title 2 3 Monosynaptic Premotor Circuit Tracing Reveals Neural Substrates 4 for Oro-motor Coordination 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Authors and affiliations 12 13 Edward Stanek IV1, Steven Cheng1, Jun Takatoh1, Bao-Xia Han1, and Fan Wang1, 2 * 14 15 1. Department of Neurobiology, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC 27710. 16 2. Department of Cell Biology, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC 27710. 17 18 19 20 21 22 Corresponding author 23 24 *Fan Wang 25 Department of Neurobiology, Box 3209 26 Duke University Medical Center 27 Durham, NC 27710 28 Phone: 919-684-3682 29 e-mail: [email protected] 30 31 Number of pages: 59 32 Number of Figures: 10 33 Number of Movies: 4 34 Number of Tables: 2 35 Number of words, Abstract: 237 36 Number of words, Main Text: 5,168 1 37 ABSTRACT 38 39 Feeding behaviors require intricately coordinated activation among the muscles of the jaw, 40 tongue, and face, but the neural anatomical substrates underlying such coordination remain 41 unclear. Here we investigate whether the premotor circuitry of jaw and tongue motoneurons 42 contain elements for coordination. Using a modified monosynaptic rabies virus based 43 transsynaptic tracing strategy, we systematically mapped premotor neurons for the jaw-closing 44 masseter muscle and the tongue-protruding genioglossus muscle. The maps revealed that the two 45 groups of premotor neurons are distributed in regions implicated in rhythmogenesis, descending 46 motor control, and sensory feedback. Importantly, we discovered several premotor connection 47 configurations that are ideally suited for coordinating bilaterally symmetric jaw movements, and 48 for enabling co-activation of specific jaw, tongue, and facial muscles. Our findings suggest that 49 shared premotor neurons that form specific multi-target connections with selected motoneurons 50 are a simple and general solution to the problem of orofacial coordination. 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 2 60 INTRODUCTION 61 62 Behaviors are executed through coordinated activity of multiple groups of motor neurons and 63 their muscle targets. Coordination of jaw and tongue muscles during feeding behaviors 64 represents one of the most intricate mechanisms of the motor system and has been observed in a 65 wide range of animals including humans (Gerstner and Goldberg, 1991; Thexton and McGarrick, 66 1994; Takada et al., 1996; Palmer et al., 1997; Ishiwata et al., 2000; Miller, 2002). Here 67 coordination concerns primarily the adjustment of both timing and sequence of muscle activation 68 to enable smooth, effective jaw and tongue movements. Three basic forms of coordination are 69 consistently observed in feeding behaviors. First, the left and right jaw muscle activities are 70 temporally symmetric, which is necessary because the mandible is joined by ligaments at the 71 midline. Second, during chewing the activity of the tongue and jaw muscles is held to a similar 72 low frequency rhythm, with the tongue positioning food between the surfaces of the teeth while 73 the jaw moves the teeth to break down food (Thexton and McGarrick, 1994; Takada et al., 1996; 74 Hiyama et al., 2000; Naganuma et al., 2001; Yamamura et al., 2002). Third, during chewing 75 (Gerstner and Goldberg, 1991; Liu et al., 1993; Naganuma et al., 2001), licking (Travers et al., 76 1997) and suckling (Thexton et al., 1998), the tongue-protruding and jaw-opening muscles are 77 co-active during jaw opening, while tongue-retracting and jaw-closing muscles are co-active 78 during jaw closing. This co-activation also occurs in cortically-induced fictive mastication and 79 occurs regardless of the frequency of cortical stimulation or the intensity of sensory stimuli 80 applied (Gerstner and Goldberg, 1991; Liu et al., 1993). 81 3 82 The neural architecture enabling these different yet specific forms of jaw-tongue-facial muscle 83 coordination remain unclear. In the more extensively studied vertebrate spinal cord, the network 84 that generates the coordinated and rhythmic muscle activity during locomotion is referred to as 85 the central pattern generator (CPG). Separate CPGs are known to control separate limb muscles, 86 with forelimb CPGs located in the cervical enlargement and hindlimb CPGs residing in the 87 lumbar enlargements (Kiehn, 2011). Limb coordination occurs through interactions between 88 these separate CPGs (Kiehn, 2011). By analogy, it is conceivable that different orofacial muscles 89 are also controlled by different CPGs with their interaction resulting in orofacial coordination, 90 although the evidence for well-defined jaw, face, and tongue CPGs is lacking. On the other hand, 91 previous studies injecting two different retrograde tracers into two different cranial motor nuclei 92 have suggested the existence of neurons projecting to both nuclei (Amri et al., 1990; Li et al., 93 1993; Kamogawa et al., 1994; Popratiloff et al., 2001; Kondo et al., 2006). However, due to 94 limitations of the neural tracer technique, such as non-specific labeling of passing fibers and 95 labeling of the entire nucleus rather than the motoneurons innervating specific muscles, whether 96 there are common premotor neurons simultaneously innervating specific motoneuron groups 97 enabling the above mentioned orofacial coordination remained unclear. Here we employed a 98 recently established monosynaptic circuit tracing methodology to identify premotor neurons of 99 the jaw-closing masseter and tongue-protruding genioglossus motoneurons (See Materials and 100 Methods). Analysis of the resultant labeling reveals several premotor circuit elements that are 101 well-suited for the orofacial coordination observed in feeding behaviors. 102 103 RESULTS 104 4 105 Transsynaptic mapping of premotor circuitry controlling the jaw-closing masseter 106 motoneurons 107 As described in the materials and methods and schematically illustrated in Figure 1, we have 108 developed a mouse line, Chat::Cre; RGT, that enables us to inject deficient rabies virus (ΔG- 109 RV) into desired muscles resulting in transsynaptic tracing of the corresponding premotor 110 circuitry in neonatal mice (Takatoh et al., 2013). For further description and discussion of this 111 method, see the materials and methods and associated Figure 1 – Figure Supplement 1. The 112 masseter is the primary jaw-closing muscle and is innervated by motoneurons located in the 113 trigeminal motor nucleus (MoV). Masseter activity is coordinated with other muscles in multiple 114 orofacial behaviors including suckling, chewing, biting, and vocalization (Travers et al., 1997). 115 To investigate the premotor circuitry controlling the masseter motoneurons, we injected ΔG-RV- 116 EGFP into the left masseter of P1 Chat::Cre; RGT mouse pups (Figure 1). Seven days later at 117 P8 (P1P8 tracing), we serial sectioned and imaged the brains to visualize the transsynaptically 118 labeled masseter premotor neurons. 119 120 Movie 1 is a representative example of all serial sections from one such transsynaptic tracing 121 experiment showing all viral-labeled regions. Figure 2 shows representative images from 122 selected labeled regions. As a summary of the key findings, the masseter premotor circuitry 123 contains: (1) extensive populations of neurons located bilaterally in the brainstem intermediate 124 reticular (IRt) and lateral reticular nuclei (MdRt, PCRt), extending from caudal (Figure 2A) to 125 rostral (Figures 2B, 2D) regions; (2) a large number of proprioceptive trigeminal mesencephalic 126 neurons (MesV) (Figure 2F), and scattered second-order sensory-related neurons in the rostral 127 and dorsal trigeminal brainstem nuclei (SpO, dPrV, Figure 2D, 2E); (3) numerous neurons in the 5 128 region surrounding MoV (Figure 2E); (4) neurons in deep cerebellar nuclei – in particular the 129 fastigial nucleus (DCN, Figure 2C), midbrain reticular formation (dMRf, Figure 2G) and the red 130 nucleus (RN, Figure 2H); and (5) sparse and sporadically labeled neurons in midline and other 131 regions, including interneurons located in ipsi- and contralateral MoV (Table 1). A much more 132 detailed description and quantification of the labeling results for each anatomical location are 133 shown in Table 1 (n=5 mice). Note that due to the dense labeling of motoneurons, as well as all 134 axon projections from labeled premotor neurons, we could not accurately quantify numbers of 135 interneurons inside the ipsilateral MoV. Labeling in all other regions is quantified (Table 1). 136 137 The masseter premotor neurons revealed here through P1P8 tracing likely reflect the circuits 138 controlling suckling at this early stage, because chewing movements in mice emerge around 139 post-natal day 12 (Westneat and Hall, 1992). On the other hand, previous studies have found that 140 during the development of chewing, glycine switches from providing excitatory to inhibitory 141 input onto motoneurons (Inoue et al., 2007; Nakamura et al., 2008). Thus, it is possible that the 142 same circuitry is used to produce rhythmic suckling early in life and rhythmic chewing later in 143 development (Langenbach et al., 1992; Westneat and Hall, 1992; Morquette et al., 2012). 144 145 To investigate whether there might be developmental changes in the masseter premotor circuitry 146 after chewing has begun, we conducted monosynaptic rabies-mediated tracing at P8 and sampled 147 at P15 (P8P15 tracing) (Figure 2 – Figure Supplement 1). A much lower efficiency of 148 motoneuron infection from peripheral injection was observed at this later stage (19±4 149 motoneurons