Molecular and cellular rhythms in excitatory and inhibitory neurons in the mouse prefrontal cortex.

This is the first study to examine translatomic rhythms in the mouse mPFC with cell-type specificity. We find that the core molecular clock cycles in phase across cell types, indicating that previously described daily oscillations in the cortical excitation/inhibition balance are not the consequence of a phase offset between PV and pyramidal cells. Nevertheless, rhythmic transcripts and their associated biological processes differ by both sex and cell type, suggesting that molecular rhythms may play a unique role in different cell types. Therefore, our results, such as the enrichment of transcripts associated with mitochondrial function in PV cells from males, point towards possible cell and sex-specific mechanisms that could contribute to psychiatric and cognitive diseases when rhythms are disrupted.