Recent years have advanced our understanding of all cell types in the brain on the level of their molecular composition, cellular morphology and physiology. While the different cell types and components are packed closely together, we only start to understand how these different cells interact with each other.

I will here present the work of our lab on oligodendrocyte cell-cell interactions.  Oligodendrocytes are the myelin producing cells of the CNS, but work from several labs has shown that oligodendrocytes are implicated in other functions including ion homeostasis and learning. In this talk I will discuss the cortical organization of oligodendrocytes, specifically their association with neurons and the vasculature. I will present the prevalence of oligodendrocyte cell body contacts with other cells besides the well-studied myelin-axon contacts. I will then dive into our investigations of the vasculature-oligodendrocyte nano-organization using high resolution 3D electron-microscopy, immunofluorescence and functional experiments. To further our advancement of oligodendrocyte physiology I will present our adopted approach to study the physiology of these non-excitable cells with cellular imaging approaches and contrast that with electrophysiological investigations. We suggest that the contact of oligodendrocytes with the vasculature could contribute to the vulnerability of myelin producing oligodendrocytes in neurodegenerative diseases.

More information:

• https://www.bordeaux-neurocampus.fr/staff/arne-battefeld/