The Recognition of the Distribution Features of Corticospinal

PRV-EGFP and PRV –mRFP viruses (From BrainVTA) were used for the retrograde tracing to label CSNs connecting to nerve trunks 248 of the brachial plexus. AAV-Retro viruses were used to validate the PRV labeled layer V neurons were CSNs.

The viruses used in this article from BrainVTA are in the table below

Attenuated pseudorabies virus strain Bartha	PRV152-CMV-EGFP
	PRV614-CMV-mRFP

Pub Date: 2020-01-01, DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroscience.2019.09.030 Email: [email protected]
Fei Wang, Jun Shen, Su Jiang, Yanqun Qiu, Xuan Ye, Chengpan Wang, Chunmin Liang and Wendong Xu
Abstract—Corticospinal neurons (CSNs) undertake direct cortical outputs to the spinal cord and innervate the upper limb through the brachial plexus. Our previous study has shown that the contralateral middle trunk transfer to the paralyzed upper extremity due to cerebral injury can reconstruct the functional cerebral cortex and improve the function of the paralyzed upper extremity. To interpret the cortical reconstruction and the motor improvement after the middle trunk transfer, we explored the distribution of CSNs connecting to the middle, upper, and lower trunk of the brachial plexus by retrograde trans-neuronal tracing using pseudorabies virus (PRV-EGFP or PRV-mRFP). We show that, rather than an individual specific area, these CSNs labeled by each trunk of the brachial plexus were widespread and mainly assembled within the primary motor cortex (M1), secondary motor cortex (M2), primary somatosensory cortex (S1), and slightly within the secondary somatosensory cortex (S2). The three trunk-labeled CSNs were intermingled in these cortices, and mostly connected to more than two trunks, especially the middle trunk-labeled CSNs with higher proportion of co-labeled neurons. Our ﬁndings revealed the distribution features of CSNs connecting to the adjacent spinal nerves that innervate the upper limb, which can improve our understanding of the corticospinal circuits associated with motor improvement and the functional cortical reconstruction after the middle trunk transfer.

Fig.1 CSNs were retrogradely traced by injection of PRV into the brachial plexus.

To interpret the cortical reconstruction and the motor improvement after the middle trunk transfer, the researchers explored the distribution of CSNs connecting to the middle, upper, and lower trunk of the brachial plexus by retrograde trans-neuronal tracing using pseudorabies virus (PRV-EGFP or PRV-mRFP) (From BrainVTA). The results showed that these CSNs are broadly distributed from the frontal cortex to the parietal cortex and mainly assembled in CFA, RFA, and a little in the caudal lateral area, which roughly corresponds to the areas covering M1 and S1, the M2 area, and the S2 area, respectively.

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