Mapping the synaptic organization by viral cocktails

Abstract

In the past decade, the rapid development of viral tracing techniques, more precisely the neurotropic viral based mono-transsynaptic tracing strategy, provides a powerful tool to map synaptic connectivity in the central and peripheral nervous systems. This mini review provides a brief description of the principles of this tracing method, describe different strategies to trace the neural circuit from defined neuronal populations, and present an update of newly developed viral variants optimizing the method.

Keywords

neurotropic virus / transsynaptic tracing / connectivity