Prefrontal Cortical Projection Neurons: Involvement in Shaping Different Types of Behaviors, BDNF Expression and Transport

The prefrontal cortex (PFC) plays a key role in cognitiveplasticity and is involved in various processes of higher nervousactivity. At the same time, studying the processes underlying varioustypes of behavior, in which PFC neurons are involved, is a nontrivialtask. The associative functions of the PFC are attributed to thepatterns of connectivity between this structure and other brainregions, which, according to recent data, appear to be much morecomplex than previously thought. Thus, it is clear that the axonsof PFC projection neurons have numerous collaterals that projectto a large number of different targets in the brain. In this review,we summarize recent results in studying the connectivity of PFCneurons using state-of-the-art methods for analyzing neuronal projectionsand single-cell transcriptomes. Brain-derived neurotrophic factor(BDNF) plays an important role in the function of these neuronsand their projection targets. We discuss recent results on mappingBDNF-expressing projection neurons in the PFC and BDNF axonal transportto the structures where it is not locally expressed, also highlighting Bdnf gene expression and potentialrole in the pathogenesis of mental disorders.