Abstract:

In the cerebral cortex, local inhibition is achieved by different types of gamma-aminobutyric (GABA)-expressing interneurons, representing essential key players of cortical information processing. Their development has to be highly orchestrated to ensure proper numbers and subtype composition in the adult cortex and defects in interneuron development contribute to the pathophysiology of psychiatric diseases. Different from cortical projection neurons, inhibitory interneurons have their origin in proliferative zones in the basal telencephalon from where they have to migrate over long distances up to the cortex. During this migratory process, post-mitotic interneurons have to continuously adopt their morphology and directionality following guidance cues that are expressed in spatiotemporal-specific manner (Zimmer-Bensch, 2018). Detection and integration of environmental signals are achieved by receptor and intracellular signaling proteins that are expressed in a subset-specific manner. This mediates the differential responses of interneuron subtypes to certain guidance factors and provides an explanation for the different migratory streams that appear to correlate with interneuron identity.