Characterizing the myriad cell types that comprise the mammalian brain has been a central, but long-elusive goal of neurophysiology. For instance, the properties and function of different inhibitory cell types in the cerebral cortex are topics of great interest but are still relatively unknown. This is in part because conventional blind in vivo recording techniques are limited in their ability to distinguish between different cell types. Extracellular spike width can be used to separate putative parvalbumin-positive inhibitory neurons from excitatory pyramidal cells, but this method is subject to both type I and type II errors^2,3. Alternatively, recorded neurons can be filled, recovered, and stained to later confirm their morphological and molecular identity, but this is a pain-staking and time-consuming process. Recently, genetically identified populations of inhibitory interneurons have become accessible by means of calcium imaging or visually guided patch recordings. In these approaches, viral or transgenic expression of a calcium reporter (such as GCaMP) or fluorescent protein (such as GFP) allows identification and characterization of cell types defined by promoter expression. These approaches use 2-photon microscopy, which requires expensive equipment, and are also limited to superficial cortical layers due to the light scattering properties of brain tissue.

Recently, Lima and colleagues¹ developed a novel application of optogenetics to target electrophysiological recordings to genetically identified neuronal types in vivo, termed “PINP” – or Photostimulation-assisted Identification of Neuronal Populations. Recordings are performed in mice expressing Channelrhodopsin-2 (ChR2) in specific neuronal subpopulations. Members of the population are identified by their response to a brief flash of blue light. Unlike many other optogenetic applications, the goal is not to manipulate circuit function but simply to identify neurons belonging to a genetically-defined class, which can then be characterized during normal brain function. The technique can be implemented with standard extracellular recording equipment and can therefore serve as an accessible and inexpensive alternative to calcium imaging or visually-guided patching. Here we describe an approach to PINPing specific cell types in the anesthetized auditory cortex, with the expectation that the more general points can be usefully applied in other preparations and brain regions.

In cortex, PINP holds particular promise for investigating the in vivo response properties of inhibitory interneurons. GABAergic interneurons comprise a small, heterogeneous subset of cortical neurons⁴. Different subtypes, marked by the expression of particular molecular markers, have recently been shown to perform different computational roles in cortical circuits^5-9. As genetic tools improve it may eventually be possible to distinguish morphologically- and physiologically-separable types that fall within these broad classes. We here share our strategy for obtaining stable, well-isolated single-unit recordings from identified inhibitory interneurons in the anesthetized mouse cortex. This strategy was developed specifically for targeting parvalbumin-positive (PV+) cells, but we have found that it works for other interneuron types as well, such as somatostatin-expressing (SOM+) and calretinin-expressing (CR+) interneurons. Although PINPing is conceptually straightforward, it can be surprisingly unyielding in practice. We learned a number of tips and tricks through trial-and-error that may be useful to others attempting the method.