Targeted single-neuron infection with rabies virus for transneuronal multisynaptic tracing

The transynaptic and retrograde spread of rabies virus make it an efficient and robust transneuronal tracer, capable of revealing connectivity patterns of multisynaptic, neuronal circuits with great detail. Current techniques begin by infecting many neurons simultaneously, from which higher-order neurons are then labeled sequentially in time. Here we report on a method that can initially infect a single neuron-of-choice, allowing for greater precision and specificity of labeled circuits. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.