Adolescent Prefrontal Circuit Refinement
Research goal
How does synaptic pruning in the prefrontal cortex contribute to cognitive flexibility during adolescent development?
Example overview
The best path is a longitudinal design that measures circuit refinement and behavior in the same animals, while avoiding a claim that pruning alone determines cognition. The ranked program deliberately keeps competing mechanisms separate, then uses perturbation, rescue, and independent-model replication to decide which should advance.
Leading hypotheses
A narrow microglial refinement window calibrates rule shifting
Transient microglial synapse engagement during mid-adolescence may calibrate later prefrontal rule-shift performance.
Complement tagging separates flexible from persistent synapses
Complement-associated tagging may preferentially mark a subset of adolescent prefrontal synapses for refinement.
Circuit synchrony mediates the behavior link
The effect of adolescent refinement on flexibility may be mediated by maturation of prefrontal network synchrony.