Cellular composition and circuit organization of mouse locus coeruleus

The locus coeruleus (LC) houses the vast majority of noradrenergic neurons in the brain and regulates many fundamental functions including fight and flight response, attention control, and sleep/wake cycles. While efferent projections of the LC have been extensively investigated, little is known about its local circuit organization. Here, we performed large-scale multi-patch recordings of noradrenergic neurons in adult mouse LC to profile their morpho-electric properties while simultaneously examining their interactions. LC noradrenergic neurons are diverse and could be classified into two major morpho-electric types. While fast excitatory synaptic transmission among LC noradrenergic neurons was not observed in our preparation, these mature LC neurons connected via gap junction at a rate similar to their early developmental stage and comparable to other brain regions. Most electrical connections form between dendrites and are restricted to narrowly spaced pairs or small clusters of neur..., Slice electrophysiology, morphology reconstruction，computation modeling, MS Excel, Neurolucida Explorer (https://www.mbfbioscience.com/products/neurolucida-explorer), MATLAb (R2021a, The Mathworks, Natick, MA)