Hippocampal CA3 connectomics reveals a gradient of mossy fiber inputs and selective feedforward inhibition onto pyramidal cells.
Zheng Zhihao Z, Park Changjoo C, Hammerschmith Eric W EW, Lu Ran R et al.
The mossy fiber (MF) connections to pyramidal cells in hippocampal CA3 are thought to participate in pattern separation, pattern completion and memory encoding, yet no large-scale neuronal wiring diagram exists for these connections. We assembled a 3D electron microscopy volume (~1 × 1 × 0.1 mm3) from mouse hippocampal CA3. By proofreading and automated segmentation, we reconstructed and classified all soma-containing neurons-including 1,815 pyramidal cells and 229 inhibitory cells-and over 55,000 MF axons. Pyramidal cells receive more numerous MF inputs along a proximodistal gradient. Some distal cells show surprisingly high convergence via relatively small terminals with fewer vesicles. Pyramidal cells share significantly more MF inputs than networks randomized by degree-preserving swap and are better approximated by networks randomized by proximity-preserving swap. We identify a feedforward inhibitory circuit motif from MFs via perisomatic interneurons that selectively target a pyramidal subtype. We demonstrated large-scale mapping across levels in the hippocampus-from circuits to cell types to vesicles. The dataset is shared through Pyr.ai , an online platform for hippocampal connectomics.