
Cesar PorreroAutonomous University of Madrid | UAM · Department Anatomy, Histology and Neuroscience
Cesar Porrero
PhD in Neuroscience - Professor (Associate)
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29
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Publications (29)
Thalamocortical pathways from the rodent ventral posterior (VP) thalamic complex to the somatosensory cerebral cortex areas are a key model in modern neuroscience. However, beyond the intensively studied projection from medial VP (VPM) to the primary somatosensory area (S1), the wiring of these pathways remains poorly characterized. We combined mic...
The isotropic virtual planes (IVP) method is a global spatial sampling approach for length estimation. Thanks to computer-assisted microscopy, IVP can be applied to thick sections oriented in any particular direction, as the stereological probe is randomly rotated inside the section and, therefore, avoids the possible bias that might occur when str...
The thalamus is a central link between cortical and subcortical brain motor systems. Axons from the deep nuclei of the cerebellum (DCN), or the output nuclei of the basal ganglia system (substantia nigra reticulata, SNr; and internal pallidum GPi/ENT) monosynaptically innervate the thalamus, prominently some nuclei of the ventral nuclear group. In...
All pathways targeting the thalamus terminate directly onto the thalamic projection cells. As these cells lack local excitatory interconnections, their computations are fundamentally defined by the type and local convergence patterns of the extrinsic inputs. These two key variables, however, remain poorly defined for the "higher order relay" (HO) n...
Projection neurons are the commonest neuronal type in the mammalian forebrain and their individual characterization is a crucial step to understand how neural circuitry operates. These cells have an axon whose arborizations extend over long distances, branching in complex patterns and/or in multiple brain regions. Axon length is a principal estimat...
Aggregates of the microtubule-associated protein tau are a common marker of neurodegenerative diseases collectively termed as tauopathies, such as Alzheimer's disease (AD) and frontotemporal lobar dementia. Therapeutic strategies based on tau have failed in late stage clinical trials, suggesting that tauopathy may be the consequence of upstream cau...
Projection neurons are the commonest neuronal type in the mammalian forebrain and their individual characterization is a crucial step to understand how neural circuitry operates. These cells have an axon whose arborizations extend over long distances, branching in complex patterns and/or in multiple brain regions. Axon length is a principal estimat...
The thalamus engages in sensation, action, and cognition, but the structures underlying these functions are poorly understood. Thalamic innervation of associative cortex targets several types of interneurons - modulating their dynamics and influencing their plasticity. Is this structure-function relationship distinct from that of sensory thalamocor...
Approximately 44 million people worldwide live with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) or a related form of dementia. Aggregates of the microtubule-associated protein tau are a common marker of these neurodegenerative diseases collectively termed as tauopathies. However, all therapeutic attempts based on tau have failed, suggesting that tau may only indicate...
Thalamocortical Posterior nucleus (Po) axons innervating the vibrissal somatosensory (S1) and motor (MC) cortices are key links in the brain neuronal network that allows rodents to explore the environment whisking with their motile snout vibrissae. Here, using fine-scale high-end 3D electron microscopy, we demonstrate in adult male C57BL/6 wildtype...
Thalamocortical Posterior nucleus (Po) axons innervating the somatosensory (S1) and motor (MC) vibrissal cortices are key links in the brain neuronal network that allows rodents to explore the environment whisking with their motile vibrissae. Here, using high-end 3D electron microscopy, we demonstrate massive differences between MC vs. S1 Po synaps...
Rodents extract information about nearby objects from the movement of their whiskers through dynamic computations that
are carried out by a network of forebrain structures that includes the thalamus and the primary sensory (S1BF) and motor
(M1wk) whisker cortices. The posterior nucleus (Po), a higher order thalamic nucleus, is a key hub of this net...
Sleep cycles consist of rapid alterations between arousal states, including transient perturbation of sleep rhythms, microarousals, and full-blown awake states. Here we demonstrate that the calretinin (CR)-containing neurons in the dorsal medial thalamus (DMT) constitute a key diencephalic node that mediates distinct levels of forebrain arousal. Ce...
We report a highly efficient, simple, and non-infective method for labeling individual long-range projection neurons (LRPNs) in a specific location with enough sparseness and intensity to allow complete and unambiguous reconstructions of their entire axonal tree. The method is based on the “in vivo” transfection of a large RNA construct that drives...
Thalamocortical (TC) input is a key determinant of the content and dynamics of information flow in the cerebral cortex. This input reaches the cortex via a diverse array of TC pathways, whose intricate and overlapping wiring architectures are not yet well understood. The traditional division between specific and nonspecific TC pathways needs revisi...
Two main neuronal pathways connect facial whiskers to the somatosensory cortex in rodents: (i) the lemniscal pathway, which originates in the brainstem principal trigeminal nucleus and is relayed in the ventroposterior thalamic nucleus and (ii) the paralemniscal pathway, originating in the spinal trigeminal nucleus and relayed in the posterior thal...
Transgenic mouse lines in which a fluorescent protein is constitutively expressed under the Thy1 gene promoter have become important models in cell biology and pathology studies of specific neuronal populations. As a result of positional insertion and/or copy number effects on the transgene, the populations expressing the fluorescent protein (eYFP+...
Input to apical dendritic tufts is now deemed crucial for associative learning, attention, and similar "feedback" interactions in the cerebral cortex. Excitatory input to apical tufts in neocortical layer 1 has been traditionally assumed to be predominantly cortical, as thalamic pathways directed to this layer were regarded relatively scant and dif...
Thalamocortical (TC) pathways are still mainly understood as the gateway for ascending sensory-motor information into the cortex. However, it is now clear that a great many TC cells are involved in interactions between cortical areas via the thalamus. We review recent data, including our own, which demonstrate the generalized presence in rodent tha...
Inputs to the layer I apical dendritic tufts of pyramidal cells are crucial in "top-down" interactions in the cerebral cortex. A large population of thalamocortical cells, the "matrix" (M-type) cells, provides a direct robust input to layer I that is anatomically and functionally different from the thalamocortical input to layer VI. The development...
Reelin, a large extracellular matrix glycoprotein, is secreted by several neuron populations in the developing and adult rodent brain. Secreted Reelin triggers a complex signaling pathway by binding lipoprotein and integrin membrane receptors in target cells. Reelin signaling regulates migration and dendritic growth in developing neurons, while it...