Optrode recording of an entorhinal-cortical circuit in freely moving mice

The deep layers of medial entorhinal cortex (MEC) are considered a crucial station for spatial cognition and memory. The deep sublayer Va of MEC (MECVa) serves as the output stage of the entorhinal-hippocampal system and sends extensive projections to brain cortical areas. However, the functional heterogeneity of these efferent neurons in MECVa is poorly understood, due to the difficulty of performing single-neuron activity recording from the narrow band of cell population while the animals are behaving. In the current study, we combined multi-electrode electrophysiological recording and optical stimulation to record cortical-projecting MECVa neurons at single-neuron resolution in freely moving mice. First, injection of a viral Cre-LoxP system was used to express channelrhodopsin-2 specifically in MECVa neurons that project to the medial part of the secondary visual cortex (V2M-projecting MECVa neurons). Then, a lightweight, self-made optrode was implanted into MECVa to identify the V2M-projecting MECVa neurons and to enable single-neuron activity recordings in mice performing the open field test and 8-arm radial maze. Our results demonstrate that optrode approach is an accessible and reliable method for single-neuron recording of V2M-projecting MECVa neurons in freely moving mice, paving the way for future circuit studies designed to characterize the activity of MECVa neurons during specific tasks.