Austrian Researchers Discover New Neuronal Cell Type

Researchers at the Medical University of Vienna have discovered a new neuronal cell type that regulates the transmission of information between brain areas. The discovery—described in a recent issue of the journal Science—may form the basis for new treatment options for neuropsychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia and autism, which are characterized by impaired coordination of information flow in the brain.

The scientists at MedUni Vienna's Center for Brain Research focused their basic research on the question of how communication between different brain areas is regulated and how the constantly changing streams of information from different sources can be processed without errors. 

They found answers in the CA1 area of the hippocampus, a central switchboard in the brain. There, neurogliaform cells cause the converging information about the current environment and also about relevant past experiences to be combined without being mixed up.

Thus far, science has been in the dark when it comes to the function of neurogliaform cells. "In our preclinical experiments, we have now discovered that neurogliaform cells, by briefly inhibiting other cell types, ensure that current perception and memories of past experiences can be processed both separately and also in combination," says coauthor Balint Lasztoczi from the Division of Cognitive Neurobiology at MedUni Vienna's Center for Brain Research. “This is what makes it possible, when looking at a photograph of one's grandmother (sensory information) and spontaneously recalling the smell of her homemade cakes (memory), to remain aware of what is happening in the here and now and what is being remembered.”

The regulation of ongoing and remembered information and the smooth flow of communication between brain areas is the basis for a functioning nervous system. In various neuropsychiatric disorders, such as schizophrenia and autism, this organization is impaired. The research results from the MedUni Vienna study suggest that by deciphering the function of neurogliaform cells as traffic lights in the flow of information, the researchers are laying foundations for the development of new treatment options.

The team intends to go on to investigate how the activity of neurogliaform cells can be influenced to form the starting point for new drugs and therapeutic options for neuropsychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia and autism.