Brain-wide genetic mapping identifies the indusium griseum as a prenatal target of pharmacologically unrelated psychostimulants.

Abstract

Psychostimulant use is an ever-increasing socioeconomic burden, including a dramatic rise during pregnancy. Nevertheless, brain-wide effects of psychostimulant exposure are incompletely understood. Here, we performed Fos-CreER^T2-based activity mapping, correlated for pregnant mouse dams and their fetuses with amphetamine, nicotine, and caffeine applied acutely during midgestation. While light-sheet microscopy-assisted intact tissue imaging revealed drug- and age-specific neuronal activation, the indusium griseum (IG) appeared indiscriminately affected. By using GAD67^gfp/+ mice we subdivided the IG into a dorsolateral domain populated by γ-aminobutyric acidergic interneurons and a ventromedial segment containing glutamatergic neurons, many showing drug-induced activation and sequentially expressing Pou3f3/Brn1 and secretagogin (Scgn) during differentiation. We then combined Patch-seq and circuit mapping to show that the ventromedial IG is a quasi-continuum of glutamatergic neurons (IG-<i>Vglut1</i>⁺) reminiscent of dentate granule cells in both rodents and humans, whose dendrites emanate perpendicularly toward while their axons course parallel with the superior longitudinal fissure. IG-<i>Vglut1</i>⁺ neurons receive VGLUT1⁺ and VGLUT2⁺ excitatory afferents that topologically segregate along their somatodendritic axis. In turn, their efferents terminate in the olfactory bulb, thus being integral to a multisynaptic circuit that could feed information antiparallel to the olfactory-cortical pathway. In IG-<i>Vglut1</i>⁺ neurons, prenatal psychostimulant exposure delayed the onset of Scgn expression. Genetic ablation of <i>Scgn</i> was then found to sensitize adult mice toward methamphetamine-induced epilepsy. Overall, our study identifies brain-wide targets of the most common psychostimulants, among which <i>Scgn</i>⁺/<i>Vglut1</i>⁺ neurons of the IG link limbic and olfactory circuits.