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Updated: Jun 1, 2025

Author Spotlight: Hypothalamic Neural Mechanism Insights
Published on: August 4, 2023
Neocortical somatostatin neuron diversity in cognition and learning
Eunsol Park1, Matthew B Mosso1, Alison L Barth1
1Department of Biological Sciences and Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA.
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Somatostatin-expressing (SST) neurons are a major class of electrophysiologically and morphologically distinct inhibitory cells in the mammalian neocortex. Transcriptomic data suggest that this class can be divided into multiple subtypes that are correlated with morpho-electric properties. At the same time, availability of transgenic tools to identify and record from SST neurons in awake, behaving mice has stimulated insights about their response properties and computational function. Neocortical SST neurons are regulated by sleep and arousal, attention, and novelty detection, and show marked response plasticity during learning. Recent studies suggest that subtype-specific analysis of SST neurons may be critical for understanding their complex roles in cortical function. In this review, we discuss and synthesize recent advances in understanding the diversity, circuit integration, and functional properties of this important group of GABAergic neurons.
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