In starved larvae of the tobacco hornworm moth Manduca sexta, larval and imaginal tissues stop growing, the former because they lack nutrient-dependent signals but the latter because of suppression by juvenile hormone. Without juvenile hormone, imaginal discs form and grow despite severe starvation. This hormone inhibits the intrinsic signaling needed for disc morphogenesis and does so independently of ecdysteroid action. Starvation and juvenile hormone treatments allowed the separation of intrinsic and nutrient-dependent aspects of disc growth and showed that both aspects must occur during the early phases of disc morphogenesis to ensure normal growth leading to typical-sized adults.

The role of juvenile hormone (JH) in regulating the timing and nature of insect molts is well-established. Increasing evidence suggests that JH is also involved in regulating final insect size. Here we elucidate the developmental mechanism through which JH regulates body size in developing Drosophila larvae by genetically ablating the JH-producing organ, the corpora allata (CA). We found that larvae that lack CA pupariated at smaller sizes than control larvae due to a reduced larval growth rate. Neither the timing of the metamorphic molt nor the duration of larval growth was affected by the loss of JH. Further, we show that the effects of JH on growth rate are dependent on the forkhead box O transcription factor (FOXO), which is negatively regulated by the insulin-signaling pathway. Larvae that lacked the CA had elevated levels of FOXO activity, whereas a loss-of-function mutation of FOXO rescued the effects of CA ablation on final body size. Finally, the effect of JH on growth appears to be mediated, at least in part, via ecdysone synthesis in the prothoracic gland. These results indicate a role of JH in regulating growth rate via the ecdysone- and insulin-signaling pathways.

The development of the adult optic lobe (OL) of is directed by a wave of ingrowth of the photoreceptors over a two day period at the outset of metamorphosis which is accompanied by the appearance of the pupal-specific transcription factor Broad-Z3 (Br-Z3) and expression of early drivers in OL neurons. During this time, there are pulses of ecdysteroids that time the metamorphic events. At the outset, the transient appearance of juvenile hormone (JH) prevents precocious development of the OL caused by the ecdysteroid peak that initiates pupariation, but the artificial maintenance of JH after this time misdirects subsequent development. Axon ingrowth, Br-Z3 appearance and the expression of early drivers were unaffected, but aspects of later development such as the dendritic expansion of the lamina monopolar neurons and the expression of late drivers were suppressed. This effect of the exogenous JH mimic (JHM) pyriproxifen is lost by 24 hr after pupariation. Part of this effect of JHM is due to its suppression of the appearance of ecdysone receptor EcR-B1 that occurs after pupation and during early adult development.

Femtosecond lasers at fixed wavelengths above 1,000 nm are powerful, stable and inexpensive, making them promising sources for two-photon microscopy. Biosensors optimized for these wavelengths are needed for both next-generation microscopes and affordable turn-key systems. Here we report jYCaMP1, a yellow variant of the calcium indicator jGCaMP7 that outperforms its parent in mice and flies at excitation wavelengths above 1,000 nm and enables improved two-color calcium imaging with red fluorescent protein-based indicators.

A fundamental question in sensory neuroscience is how parallel processing is implemented at the level of molecular and circuit mechanisms. In the retina, it has been proposed that distinct OFF cone bipolar cell types generate fast/transient and slow/sustained pathways by the differential expression of AMPA- and kainate-type glutamate receptors, respectively. However, the functional significance of these receptors in the intact circuit during light stimulation remains unclear. Here, we measured glutamate release from mouse bipolar cells by two-photon imaging of a glutamate sensor (iGluSnFR) expressed on postsynaptic amacrine and ganglion cell dendrites. In both transient and sustained OFF layers, cone-driven glutamate release from bipolar cells was blocked by antagonists to kainate receptors but not AMPA receptors. Electrophysiological recordings from bipolar and ganglion cells confirmed the essential role of kainate receptors for signaling in both transient and sustained OFF pathways. Kainate receptors mediated responses to contrast modulation up to 20 Hz. Light-evoked responses in all mouse OFF bipolar pathways depend on kainate, not AMPA, receptors.

Mood-altering compounds hold promise for the treatment of many psychiatric disorders, such as depression, but connecting their molecular, circuit, and behavioral effects has been challenging. Here we find that, analogous to effects in rodent learned helplessness models, ketamine pre-exposure persistently suppresses futility-induced passivity in larval zebrafish. While antidepressants are thought to primarily act on neurons, brain-wide imaging in behaving zebrafish showed that ketamine elevates intracellular calcium in astroglia for many minutes, followed by persistent calcium downregulation post-washout. Calcium elevation depends on astroglial α1-adrenergic receptors and is required for suppression of passivity. Chemo-/optogenetic perturbations of noradrenergic neurons and astroglia demonstrate that the aftereffects of glial calcium elevation are sufficient to suppress passivity by inhibiting neuronal-astroglial integration of behavioral futility. Imaging in mouse cortex reveals that ketamine elevates astroglial calcium through conserved pathways, suggesting that ketamine exerts its behavioral effects by persistently modulating evolutionarily ancient neuromodulatory systems spanning neurons and astroglia.

The brain can become transiently disconnected from the environment while maintaining vivid, internally generated experiences. This so-called 'dissociated state' can occur in pathological conditions and under the influence of psychedelics or the anesthetic ketamine (KET). The cellular and circuit mechanisms producing the dissociative state remain poorly understood. We show in mice that KET causes spontaneously active neurons to become suppressed while previously silent neurons become spontaneously activated. This switch occurs in all cortical layers and different cortical regions, is induced by both systemic and cortical application of KET and is mediated by suppression of parvalbumin and somatostatin interneuron activity and inhibition of NMDA receptors and HCN channels. Combined, our results reveal two largely non-overlapping cortical neuronal populations-one engaged in wakefulness, the other contributing to the KET-induced brain state-and may lay the foundation for understanding how the brain might become disconnected from the surrounding environment while maintaining internal subjective experiences.

Point-scanning two-photon microscopy enables high-resolution imaging within scattering specimens such as the mammalian brain, but sequential acquisition of voxels fundamentally limits imaging speed. We developed a two-photon imaging technique that scans lines of excitation across a focal plane at multiple angles and uses prior information to recover high-resolution images at over 1.4 billion voxels per second. Using a structural image as a prior for recording neural activity, we imaged visually-evoked and spontaneous glutamate release across hundreds of dendritic spines in mice at depths over 250 microns and frame-rates over 1 kHz. Dendritic glutamate transients in anaesthetized mice are synchronized within spatially-contiguous domains spanning tens of microns at frequencies ranging from 1-100 Hz. We demonstrate high-speed recording of acetylcholine and calcium sensors, 3D single-particle tracking, and imaging in densely-labeled cortex. Our method surpasses limits on the speed of raster-scanned imaging imposed by fluorescence lifetime.

Understanding information processing in the brain requires us to monitor neural activity in vivo at high spatiotemporal resolution. Using an ultrafast two-photon fluorescence microscope (2PFM) empowered by all-optical laser scanning, we imaged neural activity in vivo at 1,000 frames per second and submicron spatial resolution. This ultrafast imaging method enabled monitoring of electrical activity down to 300 μm below the brain surface in head fixed awake mice.