Kally O’Reilly earned her PhD in Cellular and Molecular Biology at the University of Texas at Austin in Texas in 2008. Her thesis work focused on pharmacological induced changes in depression-related behaviors and neural network interactions in the adolescent mouse brain. She then started her postdoctoral work with Menno Witter at the Kavli Institute for Systems Neuroscience/Centre for the Biology of Memory at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) in Trondheim Norway. Her postdoctoral research examines the development of hippocampal/parahippocampal regions. She has focused on early postnatal development of connections using traditional retrograde and anterograde tracing techniques. The need to delineate hippocampal/parahippocampal regions for her studies has led to the synthesis of the neonatal atlas with chemoarchitectonic markers.
Contact Details
Kally C. O’Reilly, PhD
Postdoctor – Witter Group
Kavli Institute for Systems Neuroscience, Centre for the Biology of Memory
MTFS, Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU)
NO-7489 Trondheim, Norway
Email: kally.oreilly at(@)ntnu.no
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Postnatal development of functional projections from para- and presubiculum to medial entorhinal cortex in the rat.
Related Articles Postnatal development of functional projections from para- and presubiculum to medial entorhinal cortex in the rat. J Neurosci. 2019 Sep 11;: Authors: Canto CB, Koganezawa N, Lagartos MJD, O'Reilly KC, Mansvelder HD, Witter MP Abstract Neurons in parasubiculum (PaS), presubiculum (PrS) and medial entorhinal cortex (MEC) code for place (grid cells) and head direction. Directional input has been shown to be important for stable grid cell properties in MEC, and PaS and PrS have been postulated to provide this information to MEC. In line with this, head direction cells in those brain areas are present at postnatal day (P)11 having directional tuning that stabilizes shortly after eye-opening, which is before premature grid cells emerge in MEC at P16. Whether functional connectivity between these structures exists at those early postnatal stages is unclear. With the use of anatomical tracing, voltage-sensitive dye imaging and single cell patch recordings in female and male rat brain slices between P2-61, we determined when the pathways from PaS and PrS to MEC emerge, become functional, and how they develop. Anatomical connections from PaS and PrS to superficial MEC emerge between P4-6. Monosynaptic connectivity from PaS and PrS to superficial MEC was measurable from P9-10 onwards, whereas connectivity with deep MEC was measurable from P11-12. From P14/15 on, reactivity of MEC neurons to para- and presubicular inputs becomes adult-like and continues to develop until P28-30. The maturation of the efficacy of both inputs between P9-21 is paralleled by maturation of morphological properties, changes in intrinsic properties of MEC principal neurons and changes in the GABAergic network of MEC. In conclusion, synaptic projections from PaS and PrS to MEC become functional and adult-like before the emergence of grid cells in MEC.Significance statement:Head direction information, crucial for grid cells in medial entorhinal cortex (MEC), is thought to enter MEC via para- (PaS) and presubiculum (PrS). Unraveling the development of functional connections between PaS, PrS and MEC is key to understanding how spatial navigation, an important cognitive function, may evolve. To gain insight into the development, we utilized anatomical tracing techniques, voltage-sensitive dye imaging, and single cell recordings. The combined data led us to conclude that synaptic projections from PaS and PrS to MEC become functional and adult-like before eye-opening, allowing crucial head direction information to influence place encoding before the emergence of grid cells in rat MEC. PMID: 31511428 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]
