Long-term recordings of arcuate nucleus kisspeptin neurons across the mouse estrous cycle

Endocrinology. 2024 Jan 27:bqae009. doi: 10.1210/endocr/bqae009. Online ahead of print.ABSTRACTThe arcuate nucleus kisspeptin (ARNKISS) neurons represent the gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) pulse generator that likely drives pulsatile gonadotropin secretion in all mammals. Using an improved GCaMP fiber photometry system enabling long-term continuous recordings, we aimed here to establish a definitive profile of ARNKISS neuronal activity across the murine estrous cycle. As noted previously, a very substantial reduction in the frequency of ARNKISS neuron synchronization events (SEs) occurs on late proestrus and extends into estrus. The SE amplitude remains constant throughout the cycle. During metestrus, we unexpectedly detected many multiple peak SEs (mpSEs) where many SEs occurred very rapidly within 160 s of each other. By applying a machine learning-based, k-means clustering analysis we were further able to detect substantial within-stage variability in the patterns of pulse generator activity. Estrous cycle-dependent changes in SE activity occurred around the time of lights on and off. We also find that a mild stressor such as vaginal lavage reduces ARNKISS neuron SE frequency for up to 3 h. These observations provide a comprehensive account of ARNKISS neuron activity across the estrous cycle, highlight a new pattern of mpSE activity, and introduce a new k-means clustering approach for analyzing ARNKISS neuron population behavior.PMID:38279940 | DOI:10.1210/endocr/bq...
Source: Endocrinology - Category: Endocrinology Authors: Source Type: research