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Powell NJ, Hein B, Kong D, Elpelt J, Mulholland HN, Kaschube M, Smith GB. Developmental maturation of millimeter-scale functional networks across brain areas. BIORXIV : THE PREPRINT SERVER FOR BIOLOGY 2024:2024.05.28.595371. [PMID: 38853883 PMCID: PMC11160666 DOI: 10.1101/2024.05.28.595371] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/11/2024]
Abstract
Interacting with the environment to process sensory information, generate perceptions, and shape behavior engages neural networks in brain areas with highly varied representations, ranging from unimodal sensory cortices to higher-order association areas. Recent work suggests a much greater degree of commonality across areas, with distributed and modular networks present in both sensory and non-sensory areas during early development. However, it is currently unknown whether this initially common modular structure undergoes an equally common developmental trajectory, or whether such a modular functional organization persists in some areas-such as primary visual cortex-but not others. Here we examine the development of network organization across diverse cortical regions in ferrets of both sexes using in vivo widefield calcium imaging of spontaneous activity. We find that all regions examined, including both primary sensory cortices (visual, auditory, and somatosensory-V1, A1, and S1, respectively) and higher order association areas (prefrontal and posterior parietal cortices) exhibit a largely similar pattern of changes over an approximately 3 week developmental period spanning eye opening and the transition to predominantly externally-driven sensory activity. We find that both a modular functional organization and millimeter-scale correlated networks remain present across all cortical areas examined. These networks weakened over development in most cortical areas, but strengthened in V1. Overall, the conserved maintenance of modular organization across different cortical areas suggests a common pathway of network refinement, and suggests that a modular organization-known to encode functional representations in visual areas-may be similarly engaged in highly diverse brain areas. Significance Different areas of the mature brain encode vastly different representations of the world. This study shows that a modular functional organization where nearby neurons participate in similar functional networks is shared across different brain areas not only during early development, but also as the brain matures where it remains a shared feature that shapes neural activity. The largely conserved trajectory of developmental changes across brain areas suggests that similar circuit mechanisms may drive this maturation. This implies that the large literature on developing cortical circuits, which is largely focused on sensory areas, may also apply more broadly, and that perturbations during development that impinge on any such shared mechanisms may produce deficits that extend across multiple brain systems.
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2
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Wu MW, Kourdougli N, Portera-Cailliau C. Network state transitions during cortical development. Nat Rev Neurosci 2024:10.1038/s41583-024-00824-y. [PMID: 38783147 DOI: 10.1038/s41583-024-00824-y] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 05/01/2024] [Indexed: 05/25/2024]
Abstract
Mammalian cortical networks are active before synaptogenesis begins in earnest, before neuronal migration is complete, and well before an animal opens its eyes and begins to actively explore its surroundings. This early activity undergoes several transformations during development. The most important of these is a transition from episodic synchronous network events, which are necessary for patterning the neocortex into functionally related modules, to desynchronized activity that is computationally more powerful and efficient. Network desynchronization is perhaps the most dramatic and abrupt developmental event in an otherwise slow and gradual process of brain maturation. In this Review, we summarize what is known about the phenomenology of developmental synchronous activity in the rodent neocortex and speculate on the mechanisms that drive its eventual desynchronization. We argue that desynchronization of network activity is a fundamental step through which the cortex transitions from passive, bottom-up detection of sensory stimuli to active sensory processing with top-down modulation.
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Affiliation(s)
- Michelle W Wu
- Department of Neurology, David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA
- Neuroscience Interdepartmental Graduate Program, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA
- UCLA-Caltech Medical Scientist Training Program, David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA
| | - Nazim Kourdougli
- Department of Neurology, David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA
| | - Carlos Portera-Cailliau
- Department of Neurology, David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
- Department of Neurobiology, David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
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3
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Ammari R, Monaca F, Cao M, Nassar E, Wai P, Del Grosso NA, Lee M, Borak N, Schneider-Luftman D, Kohl J. Hormone-mediated neural remodeling orchestrates parenting onset during pregnancy. Science 2023; 382:76-81. [PMID: 37797007 PMCID: PMC7615220 DOI: 10.1126/science.adi0576] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 8.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/11/2023] [Accepted: 08/09/2023] [Indexed: 10/07/2023]
Abstract
During pregnancy, physiological adaptations prepare the female body for the challenges of motherhood. Becoming a parent also requires behavioral adaptations. Such adaptations can occur as early as during pregnancy, but how pregnancy hormones remodel parenting circuits to instruct preparatory behavioral changes remains unknown. We found that action of estradiol and progesterone on galanin (Gal)-expressing neurons in the mouse medial preoptic area (MPOA) is critical for pregnancy-induced parental behavior. Whereas estradiol silences MPOAGal neurons and paradoxically increases their excitability, progesterone permanently rewires this circuit node by promoting dendritic spine formation and recruitment of excitatory synaptic inputs. This MPOAGal-specific neural remodeling sparsens population activity in vivo and results in persistently stronger, more selective responses to pup stimuli. Pregnancy hormones thus remodel parenting circuits in anticipation of future behavioral need.
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Affiliation(s)
- Rachida Ammari
- State-dependent Neural Processing Laboratory, The Francis Crick Institute, 1 Midland Rd, London NW1 1AT, UK
| | - Francesco Monaca
- State-dependent Neural Processing Laboratory, The Francis Crick Institute, 1 Midland Rd, London NW1 1AT, UK
| | - Mingran Cao
- State-dependent Neural Processing Laboratory, The Francis Crick Institute, 1 Midland Rd, London NW1 1AT, UK
| | - Estelle Nassar
- State-dependent Neural Processing Laboratory, The Francis Crick Institute, 1 Midland Rd, London NW1 1AT, UK
| | - Patty Wai
- State-dependent Neural Processing Laboratory, The Francis Crick Institute, 1 Midland Rd, London NW1 1AT, UK
| | - Nicholas A. Del Grosso
- State-dependent Neural Processing Laboratory, The Francis Crick Institute, 1 Midland Rd, London NW1 1AT, UK
| | - Matthew Lee
- State-dependent Neural Processing Laboratory, The Francis Crick Institute, 1 Midland Rd, London NW1 1AT, UK
| | - Neven Borak
- State-dependent Neural Processing Laboratory, The Francis Crick Institute, 1 Midland Rd, London NW1 1AT, UK
| | - Deborah Schneider-Luftman
- Bioinformatics and Biostatistics Science Technology Platform, The Francis Crick Institute, 1 Midland Rd, London NW1 1AT, UK
| | - Johannes Kohl
- State-dependent Neural Processing Laboratory, The Francis Crick Institute, 1 Midland Rd, London NW1 1AT, UK
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4
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Lin Y, Zhang XJ, Yang J, Li S, Li L, Lv X, Ma J, Shi SH. Developmental neuronal origin regulates neocortical map formation. Cell Rep 2023; 42:112170. [PMID: 36842085 DOI: 10.1016/j.celrep.2023.112170] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/06/2022] [Revised: 12/14/2022] [Accepted: 02/10/2023] [Indexed: 02/27/2023] Open
Abstract
Sensory neurons in the neocortex exhibit distinct functional selectivity to constitute the neural map. While neocortical map of the visual cortex in higher mammals is clustered, it displays a striking "salt-and-pepper" pattern in rodents. However, little is known about the origin and basis of the interspersed neocortical map. Here we report that the intricate excitatory neuronal kinship-dependent synaptic connectivity influences precise functional map organization in the mouse primary visual cortex. While sister neurons originating from the same neurogenic radial glial progenitors (RGPs) preferentially develop synapses, cousin neurons derived from amplifying RGPs selectively antagonize horizontal synapse formation. Accordantly, cousin neurons in similar layers exhibit clear functional selectivity differences, contributing to a salt-and-pepper architecture. Removal of clustered protocadherins (cPCDHs), the largest subgroup of the diverse cadherin superfamily, eliminates functional selectivity differences between cousin neurons and alters neocortical map organization. These results suggest that developmental neuronal origin regulates neocortical map formation via cPCDHs.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yang Lin
- IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Tsinghua-Peking Center for Life Sciences, Beijing Frontier Research Center for Biological Structure, Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Structural Biology, School of Life Sciences, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China
| | - Xin-Jun Zhang
- Developmental Biology Program, Sloan Kettering Institute, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, 1275 York Avenue, New York, NY 10065, USA
| | - Jiajun Yang
- IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Tsinghua-Peking Center for Life Sciences, Beijing Frontier Research Center for Biological Structure, Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Structural Biology, School of Life Sciences, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China
| | - Shuo Li
- IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Tsinghua-Peking Center for Life Sciences, Beijing Frontier Research Center for Biological Structure, Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Structural Biology, School of Life Sciences, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China
| | - Laura Li
- IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Tsinghua-Peking Center for Life Sciences, Beijing Frontier Research Center for Biological Structure, Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Structural Biology, School of Life Sciences, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China
| | - Xiaohui Lv
- IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Tsinghua-Peking Center for Life Sciences, Beijing Frontier Research Center for Biological Structure, Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Structural Biology, School of Life Sciences, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China
| | - Jian Ma
- IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Tsinghua-Peking Center for Life Sciences, Beijing Frontier Research Center for Biological Structure, Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Structural Biology, School of Life Sciences, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China
| | - Song-Hai Shi
- IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Tsinghua-Peking Center for Life Sciences, Beijing Frontier Research Center for Biological Structure, Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Structural Biology, School of Life Sciences, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China; Chinese Institute for Brain Research, Beijing, China.
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5
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Tiriac A, Feller MB. Roles of visually evoked and spontaneous activity in the development of retinal direction selectivity maps. Trends Neurosci 2022; 45:529-538. [PMID: 35491255 DOI: 10.1016/j.tins.2022.04.002] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/11/2022] [Revised: 03/30/2022] [Accepted: 04/05/2022] [Indexed: 11/18/2022]
Abstract
Detecting the direction of motion underlies many visually guided behaviors, from reflexive eye movements to identifying and catching moving objects. A subset of motion sensitive cells are direction selective - responding strongly to motion in one direction and weakly to motion in other directions. In mammals, direction-selective cells are found throughout the visual system, including the retina, superior colliculus, and primary visual cortex. Direction selectivity maps are well characterized in the mouse retina, where the preferred directions of retinal direction-selective cells follow the projections of optic flow, generated by the movements animals make as they navigate their environment. Here, we synthesize recent findings implicating activity-dependent mechanisms in the development of retinal direction selectivity maps, with primary focus on studies in mice, and discuss the implications for the development of direction-selective responses in downstream visual areas.
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Affiliation(s)
- Alexandre Tiriac
- Department of Molecular and Cell Biology, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA.
| | - Marla B Feller
- Department of Molecular and Cell Biology, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA; Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, 94720, USA.
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6
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Huang C, Pouget A, Doiron B. Internally generated population activity in cortical networks hinders information transmission. SCIENCE ADVANCES 2022; 8:eabg5244. [PMID: 35648863 PMCID: PMC9159697 DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abg5244] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/11/2021] [Accepted: 04/14/2022] [Indexed: 06/15/2023]
Abstract
How neuronal variability affects sensory coding is a central question in systems neuroscience, often with complex and model-dependent answers. Many studies explore population models with a parametric structure for response tuning and variability, preventing an analysis of how synaptic circuitry establishes neural codes. We study stimulus coding in networks of spiking neuron models with spatially ordered excitatory and inhibitory connectivity. The wiring structure is capable of producing rich population-wide shared neuronal variability that agrees with many features of recorded cortical activity. While both the spatial scales of feedforward and recurrent projections strongly affect noise correlations, only recurrent projections, and in particular inhibitory projections, can introduce correlations that limit the stimulus information available to a decoder. Using a spatial neural field model, we relate the recurrent circuit conditions for information limiting noise correlations to how recurrent excitation and inhibition can form spatiotemporal patterns of population-wide activity.
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Affiliation(s)
- Chengcheng Huang
- Department of Neuroscience, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, USA
- Department of Mathematics, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, USA
- Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition, Pittsburgh, PA, USA
| | - Alexandre Pouget
- Department of Basic Neuroscience, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland
| | - Brent Doiron
- Department of Mathematics, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, USA
- Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition, Pittsburgh, PA, USA
- Departments of Neurobiology and Statistics, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA
- Grossman Center for Quantitative Biology and Human Behavior, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA
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7
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Wosniack ME, Kirchner JH, Chao LY, Zabouri N, Lohmann C, Gjorgjieva J. Adaptation of spontaneous activity in the developing visual cortex. eLife 2021; 10:61619. [PMID: 33722342 PMCID: PMC7963484 DOI: 10.7554/elife.61619] [Citation(s) in RCA: 16] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/30/2020] [Accepted: 02/03/2021] [Indexed: 12/11/2022] Open
Abstract
Spontaneous activity drives the establishment of appropriate connectivity in different circuits during brain development. In the mouse primary visual cortex, two distinct patterns of spontaneous activity occur before vision onset: local low-synchronicity events originating in the retina and global high-synchronicity events originating in the cortex. We sought to determine the contribution of these activity patterns to jointly organize network connectivity through different activity-dependent plasticity rules. We postulated that local events shape cortical input selectivity and topography, while global events homeostatically regulate connection strength. However, to generate robust selectivity, we found that global events should adapt their amplitude to the history of preceding cortical activation. We confirmed this prediction by analyzing in vivo spontaneous cortical activity. The predicted adaptation leads to the sparsification of spontaneous activity on a slower timescale during development, demonstrating the remarkable capacity of the developing sensory cortex to acquire sensitivity to visual inputs after eye-opening.
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Affiliation(s)
- Marina E Wosniack
- Computation in Neural Circuits Group, Max Planck Institute for Brain Research, Frankfurt, Germany.,School of Life Sciences Weihenstephan, Technical University of Munich, Freising, Germany
| | - Jan H Kirchner
- Computation in Neural Circuits Group, Max Planck Institute for Brain Research, Frankfurt, Germany.,School of Life Sciences Weihenstephan, Technical University of Munich, Freising, Germany
| | - Ling-Ya Chao
- Computation in Neural Circuits Group, Max Planck Institute for Brain Research, Frankfurt, Germany
| | - Nawal Zabouri
- Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience, Amsterdam, Netherlands
| | - Christian Lohmann
- Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience, Amsterdam, Netherlands.,Center for Neurogenomics and Cognitive Research, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, Netherlands
| | - Julijana Gjorgjieva
- Computation in Neural Circuits Group, Max Planck Institute for Brain Research, Frankfurt, Germany.,School of Life Sciences Weihenstephan, Technical University of Munich, Freising, Germany
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8
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Kowalewski NN, Kauttonen J, Stan PL, Jeon BB, Fuchs T, Chase SM, Lee TS, Kuhlman SJ. Development of Natural Scene Representation in Primary Visual Cortex Requires Early Postnatal Experience. Curr Biol 2020; 31:369-380.e5. [PMID: 33220181 DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2020.10.046] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/14/2020] [Revised: 09/10/2020] [Accepted: 10/15/2020] [Indexed: 02/07/2023]
Abstract
The development of the visual system is known to be shaped by early-life experience. To identify response properties that contribute to enhanced natural scene representation, we performed calcium imaging of excitatory neurons in the primary visual cortex (V1) of awake mice raised in three different conditions (standard-reared, dark-reared, and delayed-visual experience) and compared neuronal responses to natural scene features in relation to simpler grating stimuli that varied in orientation and spatial frequency. We assessed population selectivity in the V1 by using decoding methods and found that natural scene discriminability increased by 75% between the ages of 4 and 6 weeks. Both natural scene and grating discriminability were higher in standard-reared animals than in those raised in the dark. This increase in discriminability was accompanied by a reduction in the number of neurons that responded to low-spatial-frequency gratings. At the same time, there was an increase in neuronal preference for natural scenes. Light exposure restricted to a 2- to 4-week window during adulthood did not induce improvements in natural scene or in grating stimulus discriminability. Our results demonstrate that experience reduces the number of neurons needed to effectively encode grating stimuli and that early visual experience enhances natural scene discriminability by directly increasing responsiveness to natural scene features.
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Affiliation(s)
- Nina N Kowalewski
- Department of Biological Sciences, Carnegie Mellon University, 4400 Fifth Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15213, USA
| | - Janne Kauttonen
- Department of Biological Sciences, Carnegie Mellon University, 4400 Fifth Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15213, USA; Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition, 1400 Locust Street, Pittsburgh, PA 15219, USA
| | - Patricia L Stan
- Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition, 1400 Locust Street, Pittsburgh, PA 15219, USA; University of Pittsburgh Center for Neuroscience, 4400 Fifth Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15213, USA
| | - Brian B Jeon
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University, 4400 Fifth Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15213, USA; Neuroscience Institute, Carnegie Mellon University, 4400 Fifth Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15213, USA
| | - Thomas Fuchs
- Department of Biological Sciences, Carnegie Mellon University, 4400 Fifth Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15213, USA; Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition, 1400 Locust Street, Pittsburgh, PA 15219, USA; Neuroscience Institute, Carnegie Mellon University, 4400 Fifth Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15213, USA
| | - Steven M Chase
- Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition, 1400 Locust Street, Pittsburgh, PA 15219, USA; Department of Biomedical Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University, 4400 Fifth Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15213, USA; Neuroscience Institute, Carnegie Mellon University, 4400 Fifth Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15213, USA
| | - Tai Sing Lee
- Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition, 1400 Locust Street, Pittsburgh, PA 15219, USA; Neuroscience Institute, Carnegie Mellon University, 4400 Fifth Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15213, USA; Department of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University, 4400 Fifth Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15213, USA
| | - Sandra J Kuhlman
- Department of Biological Sciences, Carnegie Mellon University, 4400 Fifth Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15213, USA; Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition, 1400 Locust Street, Pittsburgh, PA 15219, USA; University of Pittsburgh Center for Neuroscience, 4400 Fifth Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15213, USA; Department of Biomedical Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University, 4400 Fifth Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15213, USA; Neuroscience Institute, Carnegie Mellon University, 4400 Fifth Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15213, USA.
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9
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Tan L, Tring E, Ringach DL, Zipursky SL, Trachtenberg JT. Vision Changes the Cellular Composition of Binocular Circuitry during the Critical Period. Neuron 2020; 108:735-747.e6. [PMID: 33091339 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuron.2020.09.022] [Citation(s) in RCA: 18] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/06/2020] [Revised: 08/18/2020] [Accepted: 09/16/2020] [Indexed: 02/04/2023]
Abstract
High acuity stereopsis emerges during an early postnatal critical period when binocular neurons in the primary visual cortex sharpen their receptive field tuning properties. We find that this sharpening is achieved by dismantling the binocular circuit present at critical period onset and building it anew. Longitudinal imaging of receptive field tuning (e.g., orientation selectivity) of thousands of neurons reveals that most binocular neurons present in layer 2/3 at critical period onset are poorly tuned and are rendered monocular. In parallel, new binocular neurons are established by conversion of well-tuned monocular neurons as they gain matched input from the other eye. These improvements in binocular tuning in layer 2/3 are not inherited from layer 4 but are driven by the experience-dependent sharpening of ipsilateral eye responses. Thus, vision builds a new and more sharply tuned binocular circuit in layer 2/3 by cellular exchange and not by refining the original circuit.
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Affiliation(s)
- Liming Tan
- Department of Biological Chemistry, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA; Howard Hughes Medical Institute
| | - Elaine Tring
- Department of Neurobiology, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA
| | - Dario L Ringach
- Department of Neurobiology, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA; Department of Psychology, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA
| | - S Lawrence Zipursky
- Department of Biological Chemistry, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA; Howard Hughes Medical Institute
| | - Joshua T Trachtenberg
- Department of Neurobiology, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA.
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10
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Cortical Presynaptic Boutons Progressively Engulf Spinules as They Mature. eNeuro 2020; 7:ENEURO.0426-19.2020. [PMID: 32958478 PMCID: PMC7568603 DOI: 10.1523/eneuro.0426-19.2020] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/14/2019] [Revised: 08/20/2020] [Accepted: 09/08/2020] [Indexed: 01/01/2023] Open
Abstract
Despite decades of discussion in the neuroanatomical literature, the role of the synaptic "spinule" in synaptic development and function remains elusive. Canonically, spinules are finger-like projections that emerge from postsynaptic spines and can become enveloped by presynaptic boutons. When a presynaptic bouton encapsulates a spinule in this manner, the membrane apposition between the spinule and surrounding bouton can be significantly larger than the membrane interface at the synaptic active zone. Hence, spinules may represent a mechanism for extrasynaptic neuronal communication and/or may function as structural "anchors" that increase the stability of cortical synapses. Yet despite their potential to impact synaptic function, we have little information on the percentages of developing and adult cortical bouton populations that contain spinules, the percentages of these cortical spinule-bearing boutons (SBBs) that contain spinules from distinct neuronal/glial origins, or whether the onset of activity or cortical plasticity are correlated with increased prevalence of cortical SBBs. Here, we employed 2D and 3D electron microscopy to determine the prevalence of spinules in excitatory presynaptic boutons at key developmental time points in the primary visual cortex (V1) of female and male ferrets. We find that the prevalence of SBBs in V1 increases across postnatal development, such that ∼25% of excitatory boutons in late adolescent ferret V1 contain spinules. In addition, we find that a majority of spinules within SBBs at later developmental time points emerge from postsynaptic spines and adjacent boutons/axons, suggesting that synaptic spinules may enhance synaptic stability and allow for axo-axonal communication in mature sensory cortex.
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11
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Liu CJ, Roy A, Simons AA, Farinella DM, Kara P. Three-photon imaging of synthetic dyes in deep layers of the neocortex. Sci Rep 2020; 10:16351. [PMID: 33004996 PMCID: PMC7529898 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-020-73438-w] [Citation(s) in RCA: 16] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/15/2020] [Accepted: 09/16/2020] [Indexed: 11/09/2022] Open
Abstract
Multiphoton microscopy has emerged as the primary imaging tool for studying the structural and functional dynamics of neural circuits in brain tissue, which is highly scattering to light. Recently, three-photon microscopy has enabled high-resolution fluorescence imaging of neurons in deeper brain areas that lie beyond the reach of conventional two-photon microscopy, which is typically limited to ~ 450 µm. Three-photon imaging of neuronal calcium signals, through the genetically-encoded calcium indicator GCaMP6, has been used to successfully record neuronal activity in deeper neocortical layers and parts of the hippocampus in rodents. Bulk-loading cells in deeper cortical layers with synthetic calcium indicators could provide an alternative strategy for labelling that obviates dependence on viral tropism and promoter penetration, particularly in non-rodent species. Here we report a strategy for visualized injection of a calcium dye, Oregon Green BAPTA-1 AM (OGB-1 AM), at 500-600 µm below the surface of the mouse visual cortex in vivo. We demonstrate successful OGB-1 AM loading of cells in cortical layers 5-6 and subsequent three-photon imaging of orientation- and direction- selective visual responses from these cells.
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Affiliation(s)
- Chao J Liu
- Department of Neuroscience, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, 55455, USA
- Centre for Magnetic Resonance Research, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, 55455, USA
| | - Arani Roy
- Department of Neuroscience, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, 55455, USA
- Centre for Magnetic Resonance Research, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, 55455, USA
| | - Anthony A Simons
- Department of Neuroscience, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, 55455, USA
- Centre for Magnetic Resonance Research, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, 55455, USA
| | - Deano M Farinella
- Department of Neuroscience, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, 55455, USA
- Centre for Magnetic Resonance Research, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, 55455, USA
| | - Prakash Kara
- Department of Neuroscience, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, 55455, USA.
- Centre for Magnetic Resonance Research, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, 55455, USA.
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12
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Avitan L, Pujic Z, Mölter J, McCullough M, Zhu S, Sun B, Myhre AE, Goodhill GJ. Behavioral Signatures of a Developing Neural Code. Curr Biol 2020; 30:3352-3363.e5. [DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2020.06.040] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/25/2019] [Revised: 04/13/2020] [Accepted: 06/11/2020] [Indexed: 10/23/2022]
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13
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Roy A, Osik JJ, Meschede-Krasa B, Alford WT, Leman DP, Van Hooser SD. Synaptic and intrinsic mechanisms underlying development of cortical direction selectivity. eLife 2020; 9:e58509. [PMID: 32701059 PMCID: PMC7440916 DOI: 10.7554/elife.58509] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/02/2020] [Accepted: 07/23/2020] [Indexed: 02/02/2023] Open
Abstract
Modifications of synaptic inputs and cell-intrinsic properties both contribute to neuronal plasticity and development. To better understand these mechanisms, we undertook an intracellular analysis of the development of direction selectivity in the ferret visual cortex, which occurs rapidly over a few days after eye opening. We found strong evidence of developmental changes in linear spatiotemporal receptive fields of simple cells, implying alterations in circuit inputs. Further, this receptive field plasticity was accompanied by increases in near-spike-threshold excitability and input-output gain that resulted in dramatically increased spiking responses in the experienced state. Increases in subthreshold membrane responses induced by the receptive field plasticity and the increased input-output spiking gain were both necessary to explain the elevated firing rates in experienced ferrets. These results demonstrate that cortical direction selectivity develops through a combination of plasticity in inputs and in cell-intrinsic properties.
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Affiliation(s)
- Arani Roy
- Department of Biology, Brandeis UniversityWalthamUnited States
- Volen Center for Complex Systems, Brandeis UniversityWalthamUnited States
| | - Jason J Osik
- Department of Biology, Brandeis UniversityWalthamUnited States
- Volen Center for Complex Systems, Brandeis UniversityWalthamUnited States
| | | | - Wesley T Alford
- Department of Biology, Brandeis UniversityWalthamUnited States
| | - Daniel P Leman
- Department of Biology, Brandeis UniversityWalthamUnited States
| | - Stephen D Van Hooser
- Department of Biology, Brandeis UniversityWalthamUnited States
- Volen Center for Complex Systems, Brandeis UniversityWalthamUnited States
- Sloan-Swartz Center for Theoretical Neurobiology Brandeis UniversityWalthamUnited States
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14
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An early phase of instructive plasticity before the typical onset of sensory experience. Nat Commun 2020; 11:11. [PMID: 31896763 PMCID: PMC6940391 DOI: 10.1038/s41467-019-13872-1] [Citation(s) in RCA: 38] [Impact Index Per Article: 9.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/03/2019] [Accepted: 12/04/2019] [Indexed: 11/09/2022] Open
Abstract
While early experience with moving stimuli is necessary for the development of direction selectivity in visual cortex of carnivores, it is unclear whether experience exerts a permissive or instructive influence. To test if the specific parameters of the experienced stimuli could instructively sculpt the emergent responses, visually naive ferrets were exposed to several hours of experience with unusual spatiotemporal patterns. In the most immature ferrets, cortical neurons developed selectivity to these patterns, indicating an instructive influence. In animals that were 1–10 days more mature, exposure to the same patterns led to a developmentally-typical increase in direction selectivity. We conclude that visual development progresses via an early phase of instructive plasticity, when the specific patterns of neural activity shape the specific parameters of the emerging response properties, followed by a late phase of permissive maturation, when sensory-driven activity merely serves to enhance the response properties already seeded in cortical circuits. Brain circuits exhibit different amounts of plasticity over different developmental stages. Here authors show that there is a transition of the influence of spatiotemporal patterns, from instructive to permissive, around the time of the onset of visual experience.
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15
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Gribizis A, Ge X, Daigle TL, Ackman JB, Zeng H, Lee D, Crair MC. Visual Cortex Gains Independence from Peripheral Drive before Eye Opening. Neuron 2019; 104:711-723.e3. [PMID: 31561919 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuron.2019.08.015] [Citation(s) in RCA: 41] [Impact Index Per Article: 8.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/30/2019] [Revised: 07/15/2019] [Accepted: 08/08/2019] [Indexed: 10/26/2022]
Abstract
Visual spatial perception in the mammalian brain occurs through two parallel pathways: one reaches the primary visual cortex (V1) through the thalamus and another the superior colliculus (SC) via direct projections from the retina. The origin, development, and relative function of these two evolutionarily distinct pathways remain obscure. We examined the early functional development of both pathways by simultaneously imaging pre- and post-synaptic spontaneous neuronal activity. We observed that the quality of retinal activity transfer to the thalamus and superior colliculus does not change across the first two postnatal weeks. However, beginning in the second postnatal week, retinal activity does not drive V1 as strongly as earlier wave activity, suggesting that intrinsic cortical activity competes with signals from the sensory periphery as the cortex matures. Together, these findings bring new insight into the function of the SC and V1 and the role of peripheral activity in driving both circuits across development.
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Affiliation(s)
- Alexandra Gribizis
- Department of Neuroscience, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT 06510, USA
| | - Xinxin Ge
- Department of Neuroscience, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT 06510, USA
| | - Tanya L Daigle
- Allen Institute for Brain Science, Seattle, WA 98109, USA
| | - James B Ackman
- Department of Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology, University of California, Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, CA 95064, USA
| | - Hongkui Zeng
- Allen Institute for Brain Science, Seattle, WA 98109, USA
| | - Daeyeol Lee
- Department of Neuroscience, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT 06510, USA
| | - Michael C Crair
- Department of Neuroscience, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT 06510, USA.
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16
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Bányai M, Lazar A, Klein L, Klon-Lipok J, Stippinger M, Singer W, Orbán G. Stimulus complexity shapes response correlations in primary visual cortex. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2019; 116:2723-2732. [PMID: 30692266 PMCID: PMC6377442 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1816766116] [Citation(s) in RCA: 27] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/18/2022] Open
Abstract
Spike count correlations (SCCs) are ubiquitous in sensory cortices, are characterized by rich structure, and arise from structured internal dynamics. However, most theories of visual perception treat contributions of neurons to the representation of stimuli independently and focus on mean responses. Here, we argue that, in a functional model of visual perception, featuring probabilistic inference over a hierarchy of features, inferences about high-level features modulate inferences about low-level features ultimately introducing structured internal dynamics and patterns in SCCs. Specifically, high-level inferences for complex stimuli establish the local context in which neurons in the primary visual cortex (V1) interpret stimuli. Since the local context differentially affects multiple neurons, this conjecture predicts specific modulations in the fine structure of SCCs as stimulus identity and, more importantly, stimulus complexity varies. We designed experiments with natural and synthetic stimuli to measure the fine structure of SCCs in V1 of awake behaving macaques and assessed their dependence on stimulus identity and stimulus statistics. We show that the fine structure of SCCs is specific to the identity of natural stimuli and changes in SCCs are independent of changes in response mean. Critically, we demonstrate that stimulus specificity of SCCs in V1 can be directly manipulated by altering the amount of high-order structure in synthetic stimuli. Finally, we show that simple phenomenological models of V1 activity cannot account for the observed SCC patterns and conclude that the stimulus dependence of SCCs is a natural consequence of structured internal dynamics in a hierarchical probabilistic model of natural images.
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Affiliation(s)
- Mihály Bányai
- Computational Systems Neuroscience Lab, MTA Wigner Research Centre for Physics, 1121 Budapest, Hungary;
| | - Andreea Lazar
- Ernst Strüngmann Institute for Neuroscience, 60528 Frankfurt am Main, Germany
- Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies, 60438 Frankfurt am Main, Germany
- Max Planck Institute for Brain Research, 60438 Frankfurt am Main, Germany
| | - Liane Klein
- Ernst Strüngmann Institute for Neuroscience, 60528 Frankfurt am Main, Germany
- Max Planck Institute for Brain Research, 60438 Frankfurt am Main, Germany
- International Max Planck Research School for Neural Circuits, 60438 Frankfurt am Main, Germany
| | - Johanna Klon-Lipok
- Ernst Strüngmann Institute for Neuroscience, 60528 Frankfurt am Main, Germany
- Max Planck Institute for Brain Research, 60438 Frankfurt am Main, Germany
| | - Marcell Stippinger
- Computational Systems Neuroscience Lab, MTA Wigner Research Centre for Physics, 1121 Budapest, Hungary
| | - Wolf Singer
- Ernst Strüngmann Institute for Neuroscience, 60528 Frankfurt am Main, Germany
- Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies, 60438 Frankfurt am Main, Germany
- Max Planck Institute for Brain Research, 60438 Frankfurt am Main, Germany
| | - Gergő Orbán
- Computational Systems Neuroscience Lab, MTA Wigner Research Centre for Physics, 1121 Budapest, Hungary
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17
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Maternal Immune Activation Alters Adult Behavior, Gut Microbiome and Juvenile Brain Oscillations in Ferrets. eNeuro 2018; 5:eN-NWR-0313-18. [PMID: 30406186 PMCID: PMC6220580 DOI: 10.1523/eneuro.0313-18.2018] [Citation(s) in RCA: 15] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/12/2018] [Revised: 09/11/2018] [Accepted: 09/19/2018] [Indexed: 12/12/2022] Open
Abstract
Maternal immune activation (MIA) has been identified as a causal factor in psychiatric disorders by epidemiological studies in humans and mechanistic studies in rodent models. Addressing this gap in species between mice and human will accelerate the understanding of the role of MIA in the etiology of psychiatric disorders. Here, we provide the first study of MIA in the ferret (Mustela putorius furo), an animal model with a rich history of developmental investigations due to the similarities in developmental programs and cortical organization with primates. We found that after MIA by injection of PolyIC in the pregnant mother animal, the adult offspring exhibited reduced social behavior, less eye contact with humans, decreased recognition memory, a sex-specific increase in amphetamine-induced hyperlocomotion, and altered gut microbiome. We also studied the neurophysiological properties of the MIA ferrets in development by in-vivo recordings of the local field potential (LFP) from visual cortex in five- to six-week-old animals, and found that the spontaneous and sensory-evoked LFP had decreased power, especially in the gamma frequency band. Overall, our results provide the first evidence for the detrimental effect of MIA in ferrets and support the use of the ferret as an intermediate model species for the study of disorders with neurodevelopmental origin.
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18
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Distributed network interactions and their emergence in developing neocortex. Nat Neurosci 2018; 21:1600-1608. [PMID: 30349107 PMCID: PMC6371984 DOI: 10.1038/s41593-018-0247-5] [Citation(s) in RCA: 40] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/07/2018] [Accepted: 08/22/2018] [Indexed: 11/25/2022]
Abstract
The principles governing the functional organization and development of
long-range network interactions in the neocortex remain poorly understood. Using
in vivo wide-field and 2-photon calcium imaging of spontaneous activity patterns
in mature ferret visual cortex, we find widespread modular correlation patterns
that accurately predict the local structure of visually-evoked orientation
columns several millimeters away. Longitudinal imaging demonstrates that
long-range spontaneous correlations are present early in cortical development
prior to the elaboration of horizontal connections, and predict mature network
structure. Silencing feed-forward drive through retinal or thalamic blockade
does not eliminate early long-range correlated activity, suggesting a cortical
origin. Circuit models containing only local, but heterogeneous, connections are
sufficient to generate long-range correlated activity by confining activity
patterns to a low-dimensional subspace via multi-synaptic short-range
interactions. These results suggest that local connections in early cortical
circuits can generate structured long-range network correlations that guide the
formation of visually-evoked distributed functional networks.
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19
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Avitan L, Goodhill GJ. Code Under Construction: Neural Coding Over Development. Trends Neurosci 2018; 41:599-609. [DOI: 10.1016/j.tins.2018.05.011] [Citation(s) in RCA: 14] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/30/2018] [Revised: 05/17/2018] [Accepted: 05/25/2018] [Indexed: 01/11/2023]
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20
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Thalamus Controls Development and Expression of Arousal States in Visual Cortex. J Neurosci 2018; 38:8772-8786. [PMID: 30150360 DOI: 10.1523/jneurosci.1519-18.2018] [Citation(s) in RCA: 28] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/14/2018] [Revised: 08/13/2018] [Accepted: 08/21/2018] [Indexed: 02/06/2023] Open
Abstract
Two major checkpoints of development in cerebral cortex are the acquisition of continuous spontaneous activity and the modulation of this activity by behavioral state. Despite the critical importance of these functions, the circuit mechanisms of their development remain unknown. Here we use the rodent visual system as a model to test the hypothesis that the locus of circuit change responsible for the developmental acquisition of continuity and state dependence measured in sensory cortex is relay thalamus, rather than the local cortical circuitry or the interconnectivity of the two structures. We conducted simultaneous recordings in the dorsal lateral geniculate nucleus (dLGN) and primary visual cortex (VC) of awake, head-fixed male and female rats using linear multielectrode arrays throughout early development. We find that activity in dLGN becomes continuous and positively correlated with movement (a measure of state dependence) on P13, the same day as VC, and that these properties are not dependent on VC activity. By contrast, silencing dLGN after P13 causes activity in VC to become discontinuous and movement to suppress, rather than augment, cortical firing, effectively reversing development. Thalamic bursting, a core characteristic of non-aroused states, emerged later, on P16, suggesting these processes are developmentally independent. Together our results indicate that cellular or circuit changes in relay thalamus are critical drivers for the maturation of background activity, which occurs around term in humans.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT The developing brain acquires two crucial features, continuous spontaneous activity and its modulation by arousal state, around term in humans and before the onset of sensory experience in rodents. This developmental transition in cortical activity, as measured by electroencephalogram (EEG), is an important milestone for normal brain development and indicates a good prognosis for babies born preterm and/or suffering brain damage such as hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy. By using the awake rodent visual system as a model, we identify changes occurring at the level of relay thalamus, the major input to cortex, as the critical driver of EEG maturation. These results could help understand the circuit basis of human EEG development to improve diagnosis and treatment of infants in vulnerable situations.
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21
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Milleret C, Bui Quoc E. Beyond Rehabilitation of Acuity, Ocular Alignment, and Binocularity in Infantile Strabismus. Front Syst Neurosci 2018; 12:29. [PMID: 30072876 PMCID: PMC6058758 DOI: 10.3389/fnsys.2018.00029] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/14/2017] [Accepted: 06/15/2018] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
Infantile strabismus impairs the perception of all attributes of the visual scene. High spatial frequency components are no longer visible, leading to amblyopia. Binocularity is altered, leading to the loss of stereopsis. Spatial perception is impaired as well as detection of vertical orientation, the fastest movements, directions of movement, the highest contrasts and colors. Infantile strabismus also affects other vision-dependent processes such as control of postural stability. But presently, rehabilitative therapies for infantile strabismus by ophthalmologists, orthoptists and optometrists are restricted to preventing or curing amblyopia of the deviated eye, aligning the eyes and, whenever possible, preserving or restoring binocular vision during the critical period of development, i.e., before ~10 years of age. All the other impairments are thus ignored; whether they may recover after strabismus treatment even remains unknown. We argue here that medical and paramedical professionals may extend their present treatments of the perceptual losses associated with infantile strabismus. This hypothesis is based on findings from fundamental research on visual system organization of higher mammals in particular at the cortical level. In strabismic subjects (as in normal-seeing ones), information about all of the visual attributes converge, interact and are thus inter-dependent at multiple levels of encoding ranging from the single neuron to neuronal assemblies in visual cortex. Thus if the perception of one attribute is restored this may help to rehabilitate the perception of other attributes. Concomitantly, vision-dependent processes may also improve. This could occur spontaneously, but still should be assessed and validated. If not, medical and paramedical staff, in collaboration with neuroscientists, will have to break new ground in the field of therapies to help reorganize brain circuitry and promote more comprehensive functional recovery. Findings from fundamental research studies in both young and adult patients already support our hypothesis and are reviewed here. For example, presenting different contrasts to each eye of a strabismic patient during training sessions facilitates recovery of acuity in the amblyopic eye as well as of 3D perception. Recent data also demonstrate that visual recoveries in strabismic subjects improve postural stability. These findings form the basis for a roadmap for future research and clinical development to extend presently applied rehabilitative therapies for infantile strabismus.
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Affiliation(s)
- Chantal Milleret
- Center for Interdisciplinary Research in Biology, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, College de France, INSERM, PSL Research University, Paris, France
| | - Emmanuel Bui Quoc
- Department of Ophthalmology, Robert Debré University Hospital, Assistance Publique - Hôpitaux de Paris Paris, France
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22
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Does experience provide a permissive or instructive influence on the development of direction selectivity in visual cortex? Neural Dev 2018; 13:16. [PMID: 30001203 PMCID: PMC6044012 DOI: 10.1186/s13064-018-0113-x] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/10/2018] [Accepted: 06/26/2018] [Indexed: 11/18/2022] Open
Abstract
In principle, the development of sensory receptive fields in cortex could arise from experience-independent mechanisms that have been acquired through evolution, or through an online analysis of the sensory experience of the individual animal. Here we review recent experiments that suggest that the development of direction selectivity in carnivore visual cortex requires experience, but also suggest that the experience of an individual animal cannot greatly influence the parameters of the direction tuning that emerges, including direction angle preference and speed tuning. The direction angle preference that a neuron will acquire can be predicted from small initial biases that are present in the naïve cortex prior to the onset of visual experience. Further, experience with stimuli that move at slow or fast speeds does not alter the speed tuning properties of direction-selective neurons, suggesting that speed tuning preferences are built in. Finally, unpatterned optogenetic activation of the cortex over a period of a few hours is sufficient to produce the rapid emergence of direction selectivity in the naïve ferret cortex, suggesting that information about the direction angle preference that cells will acquire must already be present in the cortical circuit prior to experience. These results are consistent with the idea that experience has a permissive influence on the development of direction selectivity.
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23
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Weiler S, Bauer J, Hübener M, Bonhoeffer T, Rose T, Scheuss V. High-yield in vitro recordings from neurons functionally characterized in vivo. Nat Protoc 2018; 13:1275-1293. [DOI: 10.1038/nprot.2018.026] [Citation(s) in RCA: 19] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/04/2023]
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24
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Colonnese MT, Phillips MA. Thalamocortical function in developing sensory circuits. Curr Opin Neurobiol 2018; 52:72-79. [PMID: 29715588 DOI: 10.1016/j.conb.2018.04.019] [Citation(s) in RCA: 36] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/20/2018] [Accepted: 04/13/2018] [Indexed: 12/12/2022]
Abstract
Thalamocortical activity patterns, both spontaneous and evoked, undergo a dramatic shift in preparation for the onset of rich sensory experience (e.g. birth in humans; eye-opening in rodents). This change is the result of a switch from thalamocortical circuits tuned for transmission of spontaneous bursting in sense organs, to circuits capable of high resolution, active sensory processing. Early 'pre-sensory' tuning uses amplification generated by corticothalamic excitatory feedback and early-born subplate neurons to ensure transmission of bursts, at the expense of stimulus discrimination. The switch to sensory circuits is due, at least in part, to the coordinated remodeling of inhibitory circuits in thalamus and cortex. Appreciation of the distinct rules that govern early circuit function can, and should, inform translational studies of genetic and acquired developmental dysfunction.
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Affiliation(s)
- Matthew T Colonnese
- Department of Pharmacology and Physiology, Institute for Neuroscience, The George Washington University, United States.
| | - Marnie A Phillips
- Department of Pharmacology and Physiology, Institute for Neuroscience, The George Washington University, United States
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25
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Learning-Dependent and -Independent Enhancement of Mitral/Tufted Cell Glomerular Odor Responses Following Olfactory Fear Conditioning in Awake Mice. J Neurosci 2018; 38:4623-4640. [PMID: 29669746 DOI: 10.1523/jneurosci.3559-17.2018] [Citation(s) in RCA: 29] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/19/2017] [Revised: 03/02/2018] [Accepted: 04/10/2018] [Indexed: 01/25/2023] Open
Abstract
Associative fear learning produces fear toward the conditioned stimulus (CS) and often generalization, the expansion of fear from the CS to similar, unlearned stimuli. However, how fear learning affects early sensory processing of learned and unlearned stimuli in relation to behavioral fear responses to these stimuli remains unclear. We subjected male and female mice expressing the fluorescent calcium indicator GCaMP3 in olfactory bulb mitral and tufted cells to a classical olfactory fear conditioning paradigm. We then used awake, in vivo calcium imaging to quantify learning-induced changes in glomerular odor responses, which constitute the first site of olfactory processing in the brain. The results demonstrate that odor-shock pairing nonspecifically enhances glomerular odor representations in a learning-dependent manner and increases representational similarity between the CS and nonconditioned odors, potentially priming the system toward generalization of learned fear. Additionally, CS-specific glomerular enhancements remain even when associative learning is blocked, suggesting two separate mechanisms lead to enhanced glomerular responses following odor-shock pairings.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT In the olfactory bulb (OB), odors are uniquely coded in a spatial map that represents odor identity, making the OB a unique model system for investigating how learned fear alters sensory processing. Classical fear conditioning causes fear of the conditioned stimulus (CS) and of neutral stimuli, known as generalization. Combining fear conditioning with fluorescent calcium imaging of OB glomeruli, we found enhanced glomerular responses of the CS as well as neutral stimuli in awake mice, which mirrors fear generalization. We report that CS and neutral stimuli enhancements are, respectively, learning-independent and learning-dependent. Together, these results reveal distinct mechanisms leading to enhanced OB processing of fear-inducing stimuli and provide important implications for altered sensory processing in fear generalization.
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26
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Development of Cross-Orientation Suppression and Size Tuning and the Role of Experience. J Neurosci 2018; 38:2656-2670. [PMID: 29431651 DOI: 10.1523/jneurosci.2886-17.2018] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/05/2017] [Revised: 12/19/2017] [Accepted: 01/22/2018] [Indexed: 11/21/2022] Open
Abstract
Many sensory neural circuits exhibit response normalization, which occurs when the response of a neuron to a combination of multiple stimuli is less than the sum of the responses to the individual stimuli presented alone. In the visual cortex, normalization takes the forms of cross-orientation suppression and surround suppression. At the onset of visual experience, visual circuits are partially developed and exhibit some mature features such as orientation selectivity, but it is unknown whether cross-orientation suppression is present at the onset of visual experience or requires visual experience for its emergence. We characterized the development of normalization and its dependence on visual experience in female ferrets. Visual experience was varied across the following three conditions: typical rearing, dark rearing, and dark rearing with daily exposure to simple sinusoidal gratings (14-16 h total). Cross-orientation suppression and surround suppression were noted in the earliest observations, and did not vary considerably with experience. We also observed evidence of continued maturation of receptive field properties in the second month of visual experience: substantial length summation was observed only in the oldest animals (postnatal day 90); evoked firing rates were greatly increased in older animals; and direction selectivity required experience, but declined slightly in older animals. These results constrain the space of possible circuit implementations of these features.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT The development of the brain depends on both nature-factors that are independent of the experience of an individual animal-and nurture-factors that depend on experience. While orientation selectivity, one of the major response properties of neurons in visual cortex, is already present at the onset of visual experience, it is unknown whether response properties that depend on interactions among multiple stimuli develop without experience. We find that the properties of cross-orientation suppression and surround suppression are present at eye opening, and do not depend on visual experience. Our results are consistent with the idea that a majority of the basic properties of sensory neurons in primary visual cortex are derived independent of the experience of an individual animal.
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27
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Li Y, Yu C, Zhou ZC, Stitt I, Sellers KK, Gilmore JH, Frohlich F. Early Development of Network Oscillations in the Ferret Visual Cortex. Sci Rep 2017; 7:17766. [PMID: 29259184 PMCID: PMC5736753 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-017-17502-y] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/24/2017] [Accepted: 11/27/2017] [Indexed: 01/25/2023] Open
Abstract
Although oscillations during development have been characterized in a wide range of neural systems, little is known about the interaction between these network oscillations and neuronal spiking, and the interactions among different oscillation frequencies. Here we recorded the spontaneous and visual-elicited local field potential (LFP) and multi-unit activity (MUA) in the visual cortex of freely-moving juvenile ferrets before and after eye-opening. We found that both the spontaneous and visually-elicited LFP power was increased after eye-opening, especially in higher frequency bands (>30 Hz). Spike LFP phase coupling was decreased for lower frequency bands (theta and alpha) but slightly increased for higher frequencies (high-gamma band). A similar shift towards faster frequencies also occurred for phase-amplitude coupling; with maturation, the coupling of the theta/alpha/beta band amplitude to the delta phase was decreased and the high-gamma amplitude coupling to theta/alpha phase was increased. This shift towards higher frequencies was also reflected in the visual responses; the LFP oscillation became more entrained by visual stimulation with higher frequencies (>10 Hz). Taken together, these results suggest gamma oscillation as a signature of the maturation of cortical circuitry.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yuhui Li
- Department of Psychiatry, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, 27599, USA
| | - Chunxiu Yu
- Department of Psychiatry, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, 27599, USA
| | - Zhe Charles Zhou
- Department of Psychiatry, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, 27599, USA.,Neurobiology Curriculum, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, 27599, USA
| | - Iain Stitt
- Department of Psychiatry, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, 27599, USA
| | - Kristin K Sellers
- Department of Psychiatry, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, 27599, USA.,Neurobiology Curriculum, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, 27599, USA
| | - John H Gilmore
- Department of Psychiatry, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, 27599, USA
| | - Flavio Frohlich
- Department of Psychiatry, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, 27599, USA. .,Neurobiology Curriculum, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, 27599, USA. .,Department of Neurology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, 27599, USA. .,Department of Cell Biology and Physiology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, 27599, USA. .,Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, 27599, USA. .,Neuroscience Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, 27599, USA.
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28
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Hoseini MS, Pobst J, Wright NC, Clawson W, Shew W, Wessel R. The turtle visual system mediates a complex spatiotemporal transformation of visual stimuli into cortical activity. J Comp Physiol A Neuroethol Sens Neural Behav Physiol 2017; 204:167-181. [PMID: 29094198 DOI: 10.1007/s00359-017-1219-z] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/10/2017] [Revised: 09/26/2017] [Accepted: 10/04/2017] [Indexed: 10/18/2022]
Abstract
The three-layered visual cortex of turtle is characterized by extensive intracortical axonal projections and receives non-retinotopic axonal projections from lateral geniculate nucleus. What spatiotemporal transformation of visual stimuli into cortical activity arises from such tangle of malleable cortical inputs and intracortical connections? To address this question, we obtained band-pass filtered extracellular recordings of neural activity in turtle dorsal cortex during visual stimulation of the retina. We discovered important spatial and temporal features of stimulus-modulated cortical local field potential (LFP) recordings. Spatial receptive fields span large areas of the visual field, have an intricate internal structure, and lack directional tuning. The receptive field structure varies across recording sites in a distant-dependent manner. Such composite spatial organization of stimulus-modulated cortical activity is accompanied by an equally multifaceted temporal organization. Cortical visual responses are delayed, persistent, and oscillatory. Further, prior cortical activity contributes globally to adaptation in turtle visual cortex. In conclusion, these results demonstrate convoluted spatiotemporal transformations of visual stimuli into stimulus-modulated cortical activity that, at present, largely evade computational frameworks.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Jeff Pobst
- Department of Physics, Washington University, St. Louis, MO, USA
| | | | - Wesley Clawson
- Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, AR, USA
| | - Woodrow Shew
- Department of Physics, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, AR, USA
| | - Ralf Wessel
- Department of Physics, Washington University, St. Louis, MO, USA
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29
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Richter LMA, Gjorgjieva J. Understanding neural circuit development through theory and models. Curr Opin Neurobiol 2017; 46:39-47. [DOI: 10.1016/j.conb.2017.07.004] [Citation(s) in RCA: 17] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/25/2017] [Revised: 07/07/2017] [Accepted: 07/10/2017] [Indexed: 11/25/2022]
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30
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Colonnese MT, Shen J, Murata Y. Uncorrelated Neural Firing in Mouse Visual Cortex during Spontaneous Retinal Waves. Front Cell Neurosci 2017; 11:289. [PMID: 28979189 PMCID: PMC5611364 DOI: 10.3389/fncel.2017.00289] [Citation(s) in RCA: 13] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/15/2017] [Accepted: 09/04/2017] [Indexed: 11/25/2022] Open
Abstract
Synchronous firing among the elements of forming circuits is critical for stabilization of synapses. Understanding the nature of these local network interactions during development can inform models of circuit formation. Within cortex, spontaneous activity changes throughout development. Unlike the adult, early spontaneous activity occurs in discontinuous population bursts separated by long silent periods, suggesting a high degree of local synchrony. However, whether the micro-patterning of activity within early bursts is unique to this early age and specifically tuned for early development is poorly understood, particularly within the column. To study this we used single-shank multi-electrode array recordings of spontaneous activity in the visual cortex of non-anesthetized neonatal mice to quantify single-unit firing rates, and applied multiple measures of network interaction and synchrony throughout the period of map formation and immediately after eye-opening. We find that despite co-modulation of firing rates on a slow time scale (hundreds of ms), the number of coactive neurons, as well as pair-wise neural spike-rate correlations, are both lower before eye-opening. In fact, on post-natal days (P)6–9 correlated activity was lower than expected by chance, suggesting active decorrelation of activity during early bursts. Neurons in lateral geniculate nucleus developed in an opposite manner, becoming less correlated after eye-opening. Population coupling, a measure of integration in the local network, revealed a population of neurons with particularly strong local coupling present at P6–11, but also an adult-like diversity of coupling at all ages, suggesting that a neuron’s identity as locally or distally coupled is determined early. The occurrence probabilities of unique neuronal “words” were largely similar at all ages suggesting that retinal waves drive adult-like patterns of co-activation. These findings suggest that the bursts of spontaneous activity during early visual development do not drive hyper-synchronous activity within columns. Rather, retinal waves provide windows of potential activation during which neurons are active but poorly correlated, adult-like patterns of correlation are achieved soon after eye-opening.
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Affiliation(s)
- Matthew T Colonnese
- Department of Pharmacology and Physiology, Institute for Neuroscience, The George Washington UniversityWashington, DC, United States
| | - Jing Shen
- Department of Pharmacology and Physiology, Institute for Neuroscience, The George Washington UniversityWashington, DC, United States
| | - Yasunobu Murata
- Department of Pharmacology and Physiology, Institute for Neuroscience, The George Washington UniversityWashington, DC, United States
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Wilson DE, Smith GB, Jacob AL, Walker T, Dimidschstein J, Fishell G, Fitzpatrick D. GABAergic Neurons in Ferret Visual Cortex Participate in Functionally Specific Networks. Neuron 2017; 93:1058-1065.e4. [PMID: 28279352 PMCID: PMC5477844 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuron.2017.02.035] [Citation(s) in RCA: 46] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/16/2016] [Revised: 02/07/2017] [Accepted: 02/17/2017] [Indexed: 01/08/2023]
Abstract
Functional circuits in the visual cortex require the coordinated activity of excitatory and inhibitory neurons. Molecular genetic approaches in the mouse have led to the "local non-specific pooling principle" of inhibitory connectivity, in which inhibitory neurons are untuned for stimulus features due to the random pooling of local inputs. However, it remains unclear whether this principle generalizes to species with a columnar organization of feature selectivity such as carnivores, primates, and humans. Here we use virally mediated GABAergic-specific GCaMP6f expression to demonstrate that inhibitory neurons in ferret visual cortex respond robustly and selectively to oriented stimuli. We find that the tuning of inhibitory neurons is inconsistent with the local non-specific pooling of excitatory inputs and that inhibitory neurons exhibit orientation-specific noise correlations with local and distant excitatory neurons. These findings challenge the generality of the non-specific pooling principle for inhibitory neurons, suggesting different rules for functional excitatory-inhibitory interactions in non-murine species.
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Affiliation(s)
- Daniel E Wilson
- Max Planck Florida Institute for Neuroscience, Jupiter, FL 33458, USA; Integrative Biology and Neuroscience Graduate Program, Florida Atlantic University, Jupiter, FL 33458, USA; International Max Planck Research School for Brain and Behavior, Florida Atlantic University, Jupiter, FL 33458, USA
| | - Gordon B Smith
- Max Planck Florida Institute for Neuroscience, Jupiter, FL 33458, USA
| | - Amanda L Jacob
- Max Planck Florida Institute for Neuroscience, Jupiter, FL 33458, USA
| | - Theo Walker
- Max Planck Florida Institute for Neuroscience, Jupiter, FL 33458, USA
| | - Jordane Dimidschstein
- NYU Neuroscience Institute, New York University Langone Medical Center, New York, NY 10016, USA; Center for Genomics & Systems Biology, New York University, Abu Dhabi, UAE
| | - Gord Fishell
- NYU Neuroscience Institute, New York University Langone Medical Center, New York, NY 10016, USA; Center for Genomics & Systems Biology, New York University, Abu Dhabi, UAE
| | - David Fitzpatrick
- Max Planck Florida Institute for Neuroscience, Jupiter, FL 33458, USA.
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Imaging Voltage in Genetically Defined Neuronal Subpopulations with a Cre Recombinase-Targeted Hybrid Voltage Sensor. J Neurosci 2017; 37:9305-9319. [PMID: 28842412 DOI: 10.1523/jneurosci.1363-17.2017] [Citation(s) in RCA: 19] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/18/2017] [Revised: 08/09/2017] [Accepted: 08/16/2017] [Indexed: 12/16/2022] Open
Abstract
Genetically encoded voltage indicators create an opportunity to monitor electrical activity in defined sets of neurons as they participate in the complex patterns of coordinated electrical activity that underlie nervous system function. Taking full advantage of genetically encoded voltage indicators requires a generalized strategy for targeting the probe to genetically defined populations of cells. To this end, we have generated a mouse line with an optimized hybrid voltage sensor (hVOS) probe within a locus designed for efficient Cre recombinase-dependent expression. Crossing this mouse with Cre drivers generated double transgenics expressing hVOS probe in GABAergic, parvalbumin, and calretinin interneurons, as well as hilar mossy cells, new adult-born neurons, and recently active neurons. In each case, imaging in brain slices from male or female animals revealed electrically evoked optical signals from multiple individual neurons in single trials. These imaging experiments revealed action potentials, dynamic aspects of dendritic integration, and trial-to-trial fluctuations in response latency. The rapid time response of hVOS imaging revealed action potentials with high temporal fidelity, and enabled accurate measurements of spike half-widths characteristic of each cell type. Simultaneous recording of rapid voltage changes in multiple neurons with a common genetic signature offers a powerful approach to the study of neural circuit function and the investigation of how neural networks encode, process, and store information.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Genetically encoded voltage indicators hold great promise in the study of neural circuitry, but realizing their full potential depends on targeting the sensor to distinct cell types. Here we present a new mouse line that expresses a hybrid optical voltage sensor under the control of Cre recombinase. Crossing this line with Cre drivers generated double-transgenic mice, which express this sensor in targeted cell types. In brain slices from these animals, single-trial hybrid optical voltage sensor recordings revealed voltage changes with submillisecond resolution in multiple neurons simultaneously. This imaging tool will allow for the study of the emergent properties of neural circuits and permit experimental tests of the roles of specific types of neurons in complex circuit activity.
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Development of Activity in the Mouse Visual Cortex. J Neurosci 2017; 36:12259-12275. [PMID: 27903733 DOI: 10.1523/jneurosci.1903-16.2016] [Citation(s) in RCA: 53] [Impact Index Per Article: 7.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/13/2016] [Revised: 09/24/2016] [Accepted: 10/14/2016] [Indexed: 11/21/2022] Open
Abstract
A comprehensive developmental timeline of activity in the mouse cortex in vivo is lacking. Understanding the activity changes that accompany synapse and circuit formation is important to understand the mechanisms by which activity molds circuits and would help to identify critical checkpoints for normal development. To identify key principles of cortical activity maturation, we systematically tracked spontaneous and sensory-evoked activity with extracellular recordings of primary visual cortex (V1) in nonanesthetized mice. During the first postnatal week (postnatal days P4-P7), V1 was not visually responsive and exhibited long (>10 s) periods of network silence. Activation consisted exclusively of "slow-activity transients," 2-10 s periods of 6-10 Hz "spindle-burst' oscillations; the response to spontaneous retinal waves. By tracking daily changes in this activity, two key components of spontaneous activity maturation were revealed: (1) spindle-burst frequency acceleration (eventually becoming the 20-50 Hz broadband activity caused by the asynchronous state) and (2) "filling-in" of silent periods with low-frequency (2-4 Hz) activity (beginning on P10 and complete by P13). These two changes are sufficient to create the adult-like pattern of continuous activity, alternation between fast-asynchronous and slow-synchronous activity, by eye opening. Visual responses emerged on P8 as evoked spindle-bursts and neuronal firing with a signal-to-noise ratio higher than adult. Both were eliminated by eye opening, leaving only the mature, short-latency response. These results identify the developmental origins of mature cortical activity and implicate the period before eye opening as a critical checkpoint. By providing a systematic description of electrical activity development, we establish the murine visual cortex as a model for the electroencephalographic development of fetal humans. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Cortical activity is an important indicator of long-term health and survival in preterm infants and molds circuit formation, but gaps remain in our understanding of the origin and normal progression of this activity in the developing cortex. We aimed to rectify this by monitoring daily changes in cortical activity in the nonanesthetized mouse, an important preclinical model of disease and development. At ages approximately equivalent to normal human term birth, mouse cortex exhibits primarily network silence, with spontaneous "spindle bursts" as the only form of activity. In contrast, mature cortex is noisy, alternating between asynchronous/discontinuous and synchronous/continuous states. This work identifies the key processes that produce this maturation and provides a normative reference for murine-based studies of cortical circuit development.
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Christie IK, Miller P, Van Hooser SD. Cortical amplification models of experience-dependent development of selective columns and response sparsification. J Neurophysiol 2017; 118:874-893. [PMID: 28515285 DOI: 10.1152/jn.00177.2017] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/10/2017] [Revised: 04/28/2017] [Accepted: 05/11/2017] [Indexed: 02/05/2023] Open
Abstract
The development of direction-selective cortical columns requires visual experience, but the neural circuits and plasticity mechanisms that are responsible for this developmental transition are unknown. To gain insight into the mechanisms that could underlie experience-dependent increases in selectivity, we explored families of cortical amplifier models that enhance weakly biased feedforward signals. Here we focused exclusively on possible contributions of cortico-cortical connections and took feedforward input to be constant. We modeled pairs of interconnected columns that received equal and oppositely biased inputs. In a single-element model of cortical columns, we found two ways that cortical columns could receive biased feedforward input and exhibit strong but unselective responses to stimuli: 1) within-column recurrent excitatory connections could be strong enough to amplify both strong and weak feedforward input, or 2) columns that received differently biased inputs could have strong excitatory cross-connections that destroy selectivity. A Hebbian plasticity rule combined with simulated experience with stimuli weakened these strong cross-connections across cortical columns, allowing the individual columns to respond selectively to their biased inputs. In a model that included both excitatory and inhibitory neurons in each column, an additional means of obtaining selectivity through the cortical circuit was uncovered: cross-column suppression of inhibition-stabilized networks. When each column operated as an inhibition-stabilized network, cross-column excitation onto inhibitory neurons forced competition between the columns but in a manner that did not involve strong null-direction inhibition, consistent with experimental measurements of direction selectivity in visual cortex. Experimental predictions of these possible contributions of cortical circuits are discussed.NEW & NOTEWORTHY Sensory circuits are initially constructed via mechanisms that are independent of sensory experience, but later refinement requires experience. We constructed models of how circuits that receive biased feedforward inputs can be initially unselective and then be modified by experience and plasticity so that the resulting circuit exhibits increased selectivity. We propose that neighboring cortical columns may initially exhibit coupling that is too strong for selectivity. Experience-dependent mechanisms decrease this coupling so individual columns can exhibit selectivity.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ian K Christie
- Department of Biology, Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts.,Volen National Center for Complex Systems, Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts; and
| | - Paul Miller
- Department of Biology, Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts.,Volen National Center for Complex Systems, Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts; and.,Sloan-Swartz Center for Theoretical Neurobiology, Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts
| | - Stephen D Van Hooser
- Department of Biology, Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts; .,Volen National Center for Complex Systems, Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts; and.,Sloan-Swartz Center for Theoretical Neurobiology, Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts
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Thompson A, Gribizis A, Chen C, Crair MC. Activity-dependent development of visual receptive fields. Curr Opin Neurobiol 2017; 42:136-143. [PMID: 28088066 DOI: 10.1016/j.conb.2016.12.007] [Citation(s) in RCA: 39] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/02/2016] [Revised: 12/16/2016] [Accepted: 12/19/2016] [Indexed: 11/17/2022]
Abstract
It is widely appreciated that neuronal activity contributes to the development of brain representations of the external world. In the visual system, in particular, it is well known that activity cooperates with molecular cues to establish the topographic organization of visual maps on a macroscopic scale [1,2] (Huberman et al., 2008; Cang and Feldheim, 2013), mapping axons in a retinotopic and eye-specific manner. In recent years, significant progress has been made in elucidating the role of activity in driving the finer-scale circuit refinement that shapes the receptive fields of individual cells. In this review, we focus on these recent breakthroughs-primarily in mice, but also in other mammals where noted.
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Affiliation(s)
- Andrew Thompson
- Department of Neurology, F.M. Kirby Neurobiology Center, Boston Children's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, 300 Longwood Avenue, Boston, MA 02115, USA
| | - Alexandra Gribizis
- Department of Neuroscience, Kavli Institute for Neuroscience, Yale University School of Medicine, 333 Cedar Street, New Haven, CT 06520, USA
| | - Chinfei Chen
- Department of Neurology, F.M. Kirby Neurobiology Center, Boston Children's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, 300 Longwood Avenue, Boston, MA 02115, USA.
| | - Michael C Crair
- Department of Neuroscience, Kavli Institute for Neuroscience, Yale University School of Medicine, 333 Cedar Street, New Haven, CT 06520, USA.
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36
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Watakabe A, Sadakane O, Hata K, Ohtsuka M, Takaji M, Yamamori T. Application of viral vectors to the study of neural connectivities and neural circuits in the marmoset brain. Dev Neurobiol 2016; 77:354-372. [PMID: 27706918 PMCID: PMC5324647 DOI: 10.1002/dneu.22459] [Citation(s) in RCA: 11] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/10/2016] [Revised: 09/18/2016] [Accepted: 09/20/2016] [Indexed: 01/20/2023]
Abstract
It is important to study the neural connectivities and functions in primates. For this purpose, it is critical to be able to transfer genes to certain neurons in the primate brain so that we can image the neuronal signals and analyze the function of the transferred gene. Toward this end, our team has been developing gene transfer systems using viral vectors. In this review, we summarize our current achievements as follows. 1) We compared the features of gene transfer using five different AAV serotypes in combination with three different promoters, namely, CMV, mouse CaMKII (CaMKII), and human synapsin 1 (hSyn1), in the marmoset cortex with those in the mouse and macaque cortices. 2) We used target‐specific double‐infection techniques in combination with TET‐ON and TET‐OFF using lentiviral retrograde vectors for enhanced visualization of neural connections. 3) We used an AAV‐mediated gene transfer method to study the transcriptional control for amplifying fluorescent signals using the TET/TRE system in the primate neocortex. We also established systems for shRNA mediated gene targeting in a neocortical region where a gene is significantly expressed and for expressing the gene using the CMV promoter for an unexpressed neocortical area in the primate cortex using AAV vectors to understand the regulation of downstream genes. Our findings have demonstrated the feasibility of using viral vector mediated gene transfer systems for the study of primate cortical circuits using the marmoset as an animal model. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Develop Neurobiol 77: 354–372, 2017
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Affiliation(s)
- Akiya Watakabe
- Laboratory for Molecular Analysis of Higher Brain Function, Brain Science Institute, RIKEN, 2-1 Hirosawa, Wako, Saitama, 351-0198, Japan
| | - Osamu Sadakane
- Laboratory for Molecular Analysis of Higher Brain Function, Brain Science Institute, RIKEN, 2-1 Hirosawa, Wako, Saitama, 351-0198, Japan
| | - Katsusuke Hata
- Laboratory for Molecular Analysis of Higher Brain Function, Brain Science Institute, RIKEN, 2-1 Hirosawa, Wako, Saitama, 351-0198, Japan
| | - Masanari Ohtsuka
- Laboratory for Molecular Analysis of Higher Brain Function, Brain Science Institute, RIKEN, 2-1 Hirosawa, Wako, Saitama, 351-0198, Japan
| | - Masafumi Takaji
- Laboratory for Molecular Analysis of Higher Brain Function, Brain Science Institute, RIKEN, 2-1 Hirosawa, Wako, Saitama, 351-0198, Japan
| | - Tetsuo Yamamori
- Laboratory for Molecular Analysis of Higher Brain Function, Brain Science Institute, RIKEN, 2-1 Hirosawa, Wako, Saitama, 351-0198, Japan
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Singer W, Lazar A. Does the Cerebral Cortex Exploit High-Dimensional, Non-linear Dynamics for Information Processing? Front Comput Neurosci 2016; 10:99. [PMID: 27713697 PMCID: PMC5031693 DOI: 10.3389/fncom.2016.00099] [Citation(s) in RCA: 22] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/29/2016] [Accepted: 09/02/2016] [Indexed: 12/04/2022] Open
Abstract
The discovery of stimulus induced synchronization in the visual cortex suggested the possibility that the relations among low-level stimulus features are encoded by the temporal relationship between neuronal discharges. In this framework, temporal coherence is considered a signature of perceptual grouping. This insight triggered a large number of experimental studies which sought to investigate the relationship between temporal coordination and cognitive functions. While some core predictions derived from the initial hypothesis were confirmed, these studies, also revealed a rich dynamical landscape beyond simple coherence whose role in signal processing is still poorly understood. In this paper, a framework is presented which establishes links between the various manifestations of cortical dynamics by assigning specific coding functions to low-dimensional dynamic features such as synchronized oscillations and phase shifts on the one hand and high-dimensional non-linear, non-stationary dynamics on the other. The data serving as basis for this synthetic approach have been obtained with chronic multisite recordings from the visual cortex of anesthetized cats and from monkeys trained to solve cognitive tasks. It is proposed that the low-dimensional dynamics characterized by synchronized oscillations and large-scale correlations are substates that represent the results of computations performed in the high-dimensional state-space provided by recurrently coupled networks.
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Affiliation(s)
- Wolf Singer
- Ernst Strüngmann Institute for Neuroscience in Cooperation with Max Planck SocietyFrankfurt am Main, Germany; Max Planck Institute for Brain ResearchFrankfurt am Main, Germany; Frankfurt Institute for Advanced StudiesFrankfurt am Main, Germany
| | - Andreea Lazar
- Ernst Strüngmann Institute for Neuroscience in Cooperation with Max Planck SocietyFrankfurt am Main, Germany; Max Planck Institute for Brain ResearchFrankfurt am Main, Germany; Frankfurt Institute for Advanced StudiesFrankfurt am Main, Germany
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38
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Zhou ZC, Salzwedel AP, Radtke-Schuller S, Li Y, Sellers KK, Gilmore JH, Shih YYI, Fröhlich F, Gao W. Resting state network topology of the ferret brain. Neuroimage 2016; 143:70-81. [PMID: 27596024 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2016.09.003] [Citation(s) in RCA: 26] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/05/2016] [Revised: 08/17/2016] [Accepted: 09/01/2016] [Indexed: 12/22/2022] Open
Abstract
Resting state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rsfMRI) has emerged as a versatile tool for non-invasive measurement of functional connectivity patterns in the brain. RsfMRI brain dynamics in rodents, non-human primates, and humans share similar properties; however, little is known about the resting state functional connectivity patterns in the ferret, an animal model with high potential for developmental and cognitive translational study. To address this knowledge-gap, we performed rsfMRI on anesthetized ferrets using a 9.4T MRI scanner, and subsequently performed group-level independent component analysis (gICA) to identify functionally connected brain networks. Group-level ICA analysis revealed distributed sensory, motor, and higher-order networks in the ferret brain. Subsequent connectivity analysis showed interconnected higher-order networks that constituted a putative default mode network (DMN), a network that exhibits altered connectivity in neuropsychiatric disorders. Finally, we assessed ferret brain topological efficiency using graph theory analysis and found that the ferret brain exhibits small-world properties. Overall, these results provide additional evidence for pan-species resting-state networks, further supporting ferret-based studies of sensory and cognitive function.
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Affiliation(s)
- Zhe Charles Zhou
- Department of Psychiatry, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, United States; Neurobiology Curriculum, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, United States
| | - Andrew P Salzwedel
- Biomedical Imaging Research Institute, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, CA 90048, United States; Department of Biomedical Sciences, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, CA 90048, United States
| | - Susanne Radtke-Schuller
- Department of Psychiatry, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, United States
| | - Yuhui Li
- Department of Psychiatry, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, United States
| | - Kristin K Sellers
- Department of Psychiatry, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, United States; Neurobiology Curriculum, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, United States
| | - John H Gilmore
- Department of Psychiatry, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, United States
| | - Yen-Yu Ian Shih
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, United States; Department of Neurology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, United States; Biomedical Research Imaging Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, United States; Small Animal Imaging Facility, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, United States; Neuroscience Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, United States; Neurobiology Curriculum, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, United States
| | - Flavio Fröhlich
- Department of Psychiatry, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, United States; Department of Cell Biology and Physiology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, United States; Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, United States; Department of Neurology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, United States; Neuroscience Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, United States; Neurobiology Curriculum, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, United States
| | - Wei Gao
- Biomedical Imaging Research Institute, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, CA 90048, United States; Department of Biomedical Sciences, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, CA 90048, United States.
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Kummer M, Kirmse K, Zhang C, Haueisen J, Witte OW, Holthoff K. Column-like Ca(2+) clusters in the mouse neonatal neocortex revealed by three-dimensional two-photon Ca(2+) imaging in vivo. Neuroimage 2016; 138:64-75. [PMID: 27222218 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2016.05.050] [Citation(s) in RCA: 15] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/27/2015] [Revised: 04/27/2016] [Accepted: 05/19/2016] [Indexed: 10/21/2022] Open
Abstract
Neuronal network activity in the developing brain is generated in a discontinuous manner. In the visual cortex during the period of physiological blindness of immaturity, this activity mainly comprises retinally triggered spindle bursts or Ca(2+) clusters thought to contribute to the activity-dependent construction of cortical circuits. In spite of potentially important developmental functions, the spatial structure of these activity patterns remains largely unclear. In order to address this issue, we here used three-dimensional two-photon Ca(2+) imaging in the visual cortex of neonatal mice at postnatal days (P) 3-4 in vivo. Large-scale voxel imaging covering a cortical depth of 200μm revealed that Ca(2+) clusters, identified as spindle bursts in simultaneous extracellular recordings, recruit cortical glutamatergic neurons of the upper cortical plate (CP) in a column-like manner. Specifically, the majority of Ca(2+) clusters exhibit prominent horizontal confinement and high intra-cluster density of activation involving the entire depth of the upper CP. Moreover, using simultaneous Ca(2+) imaging from hundreds of neurons at single-cellular resolution, we demonstrate that the degree of neuronal co-activation within Ca(2+) clusters displays substantial heterogeneity. We further provide evidence that co-activated cells within Ca(2+) clusters are spatially distributed in a non-stochastic manner. In summary, our data support the conclusion that dense coding in the form of column-like Ca(2+) clusters is a characteristic property of network activity in the developing visual neocortex. Such knowledge is expected to be relevant for a refined understanding of how specific spatiotemporal characteristics of early network activity instruct the development of cortical circuits.
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Affiliation(s)
- Michael Kummer
- Hans-Berger Department of Neurology, University Hospital Jena, D-07747 Jena, Germany
| | - Knut Kirmse
- Hans-Berger Department of Neurology, University Hospital Jena, D-07747 Jena, Germany
| | - Chuanqiang Zhang
- Hans-Berger Department of Neurology, University Hospital Jena, D-07747 Jena, Germany
| | - Jens Haueisen
- Institute of Biomedical Engineering and Informatics, Technical University Ilmenau, D-98693 Ilmenau, Germany
| | - Otto W Witte
- Hans-Berger Department of Neurology, University Hospital Jena, D-07747 Jena, Germany
| | - Knut Holthoff
- Hans-Berger Department of Neurology, University Hospital Jena, D-07747 Jena, Germany.
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40
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Bos R, Gainer C, Feller MB. Role for Visual Experience in the Development of Direction-Selective Circuits. Curr Biol 2016; 26:1367-75. [PMID: 27161499 DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2016.03.073] [Citation(s) in RCA: 26] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/10/2016] [Revised: 03/08/2016] [Accepted: 03/31/2016] [Indexed: 11/24/2022]
Abstract
Visually guided behavior can depend critically on detecting the direction of object movement. This computation is first performed in the retina where direction is encoded by direction-selective ganglion cells (DSGCs) that respond strongly to an object moving in the preferred direction and weakly to an object moving in the opposite, or null, direction (reviewed in [1]). DSGCs come in multiple types that are classified based on their morphologies, response properties, and targets in the brain. This study focuses on two types-ON and ON-OFF DSGCs. Though animals can sense motion in all directions, the preferred directions of DSGCs in adult retina cluster along distinct directions that we refer to as the cardinal axes. ON DSGCs have three cardinal axes-temporal, ventral, and dorsonasal-while ON-OFF DSGCs have four-nasal, temporal, dorsal, and ventral. How these preferred directions emerge during development is still not understood. Several studies have demonstrated that ON [2] and ON-OFF DSGCs are well tuned at eye-opening, and even a few days prior to eye-opening, in rabbits [3], rats [4], and mice [5-8], suggesting that visual experience is not required to produce direction-selective tuning. However, here we show that at eye-opening the preferred directions of both ON and ON-OFF DSGCs are diffusely distributed and that visual deprivation prevents the preferred directions from clustering along the cardinal axes. Our findings indicate a critical role for visual experience in shaping responses in the retina.
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Affiliation(s)
- Rémi Bos
- Department of Molecular and Cell Biology, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720-3200, USA
| | - Christian Gainer
- School of Optometry, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720-3200, USA
| | - Marla B Feller
- Department of Molecular and Cell Biology, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720-3200, USA; Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720-3200, USA.
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Smith GB, Whitney DE, Fitzpatrick D. Modular Representation of Luminance Polarity in the Superficial Layers of Primary Visual Cortex. Neuron 2016; 88:805-18. [PMID: 26590348 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuron.2015.10.019] [Citation(s) in RCA: 33] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/04/2015] [Revised: 09/23/2015] [Accepted: 10/06/2015] [Indexed: 10/22/2022]
Abstract
The spatial arrangement of luminance increments (ON) and decrements (OFF) falling on the retina provides a wealth of information used by central visual pathways to construct coherent representations of visual scenes. But how the polarity of luminance change is represented in the activity of cortical circuits remains unclear. Using wide-field epifluorescence and two-photon imaging we demonstrate a robust modular representation of luminance polarity (ON or OFF) in the superficial layers of ferret primary visual cortex. Polarity-specific domains are found with both uniform changes in luminance and single light/dark edges, and include neurons selective for orientation and direction of motion. The integration of orientation and polarity preference is evident in the selectivity and discrimination capabilities of most layer 2/3 neurons. We conclude that polarity selectivity is an integral feature of layer 2/3 neurons, ensuring that the distinction between light and dark stimuli is available for further processing in downstream extrastriate areas.
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Affiliation(s)
- Gordon B Smith
- Department of Functional Architecture and Development of Cerebral Cortex, Max Planck Florida Institute for Neuroscience, Jupiter, FL 33458, USA
| | - David E Whitney
- Department of Functional Architecture and Development of Cerebral Cortex, Max Planck Florida Institute for Neuroscience, Jupiter, FL 33458, USA
| | - David Fitzpatrick
- Department of Functional Architecture and Development of Cerebral Cortex, Max Planck Florida Institute for Neuroscience, Jupiter, FL 33458, USA.
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Abstract
Two-photon (2P) imaging has proven to be a powerful tool for investigating neural structure and function both in brain slices and in intact systems. In vivo 2P imaging presents significant challenges in sample preparation, which are exacerbated in non-murine species. Here, we describe procedures for the effective virally mediated labeling of neurons and for the implantation of cranial windows for imaging. The procedures described here are applicable to a range of species, including mice, and are routinely used in ferrets and tree shrews to provide large-scale labeling of cortical volumes and high-quality imaging data.
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43
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Roy A, Osik JJ, Ritter NJ, Wang S, Shaw JT, Fiser J, Van Hooser SD. Optogenetic spatial and temporal control of cortical circuits on a columnar scale. J Neurophysiol 2015; 115:1043-62. [PMID: 26631152 DOI: 10.1152/jn.00960.2015] [Citation(s) in RCA: 19] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/16/2015] [Accepted: 11/28/2015] [Indexed: 11/22/2022] Open
Abstract
Many circuits in the mammalian brain are organized in a topographic or columnar manner. These circuits could be activated-in ways that reveal circuit function or restore function after disease-by an artificial stimulation system that is capable of independently driving local groups of neurons. Here we present a simple custom microscope called ProjectorScope 1 that incorporates off-the-shelf parts and a liquid crystal display (LCD) projector to stimulate surface brain regions that express channelrhodopsin-2 (ChR2). In principle, local optogenetic stimulation of the brain surface with optical projection systems might not produce local activation of a highly interconnected network like the cortex, because of potential stimulation of axons of passage or extended dendritic trees. However, here we demonstrate that the combination of virally mediated ChR2 expression levels and the light intensity of ProjectorScope 1 is capable of producing local spatial activation with a resolution of ∼200-300 μm. We use the system to examine the role of cortical activity in the experience-dependent emergence of motion selectivity in immature ferret visual cortex. We find that optogenetic cortical activation alone-without visual stimulation-is sufficient to produce increases in motion selectivity, suggesting the presence of a sharpening mechanism that does not require precise spatiotemporal activation of the visual system. These results demonstrate that optogenetic stimulation can sculpt the developing brain.
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Affiliation(s)
- Arani Roy
- Department of Biology, Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts; Volen Center for Complex Systems, Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts
| | - Jason J Osik
- Department of Biology, Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts; Volen Center for Complex Systems, Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts
| | - Neil J Ritter
- Department of Biology, Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts; Volen Center for Complex Systems, Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts
| | - Shen Wang
- Department of Biology, Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts; Volen Center for Complex Systems, Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts
| | - James T Shaw
- Department of Biology, Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts
| | - József Fiser
- Volen Center for Complex Systems, Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts; Sloan-Swartz Center for Theoretical Neurobiology, Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts; and Department of Cognitive Sciences, Central European University, Budapest, Hungary
| | - Stephen D Van Hooser
- Department of Biology, Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts; Volen Center for Complex Systems, Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts; Sloan-Swartz Center for Theoretical Neurobiology, Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts; and
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44
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Bressloff PC, Carroll SR. Laminar Neural Field Model of Laterally Propagating Waves of Orientation Selectivity. PLoS Comput Biol 2015; 11:e1004545. [PMID: 26491877 PMCID: PMC4619632 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1004545] [Citation(s) in RCA: 13] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/01/2015] [Accepted: 09/08/2015] [Indexed: 01/06/2023] Open
Abstract
We construct a laminar neural-field model of primary visual cortex (V1) consisting of a superficial layer of neurons that encode the spatial location and orientation of a local visual stimulus coupled to a deep layer of neurons that only encode spatial location. The spatially-structured connections in the deep layer support the propagation of a traveling front, which then drives propagating orientation-dependent activity in the superficial layer. Using a combination of mathematical analysis and numerical simulations, we establish that the existence of a coherent orientation-selective wave relies on the presence of weak, long-range connections in the superficial layer that couple cells of similar orientation preference. Moreover, the wave persists in the presence of feedback from the superficial layer to the deep layer. Our results are consistent with recent experimental studies that indicate that deep and superficial layers work in tandem to determine the patterns of cortical activity observed in vivo.
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Affiliation(s)
- Paul C. Bressloff
- Department of Mathematics, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah, United States of America
| | - Samuel R. Carroll
- Department of Mathematics, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah, United States of America
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Bosman CA, Aboitiz F. Functional constraints in the evolution of brain circuits. Front Neurosci 2015; 9:303. [PMID: 26388716 PMCID: PMC4555059 DOI: 10.3389/fnins.2015.00303] [Citation(s) in RCA: 22] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/30/2015] [Accepted: 08/10/2015] [Indexed: 12/12/2022] Open
Abstract
Regardless of major anatomical and neurodevelopmental differences, the vertebrate isocortex shows a remarkably well-conserved organization. In the isocortex, reciprocal connections between excitatory and inhibitory neurons are distributed across multiple layers, encompassing modular, dynamical and recurrent functional networks during information processing. These dynamical brain networks are often organized in neuronal assemblies interacting through rhythmic phase relationships. Accordingly, these oscillatory interactions are observed across multiple brain scale levels, and they are associated with several sensory, motor, and cognitive processes. Most notably, oscillatory interactions are also found in the complete spectrum of vertebrates. Yet, it is unknown why this functional organization is so well conserved in evolution. In this perspective, we propose some ideas about how functional requirements of the isocortex can account for the evolutionary stability observed in microcircuits across vertebrates. We argue that isocortex architectures represent canonical microcircuits resulting from: (i) the early selection of neuronal architectures based on the oscillatory excitatory-inhibitory balance, which lead to the implementation of compartmentalized oscillations and (ii) the subsequent emergence of inferential coding strategies (predictive coding), which are able to expand computational capacities. We also argue that these functional constraints may be the result of several advantages that oscillatory activity contributes to brain network processes, such as information transmission and code reliability. In this manner, similarities in mesoscale brain circuitry and input-output organization between different vertebrate groups may reflect evolutionary constraints imposed by these functional requirements, which may or may not be traceable to a common ancestor.
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Affiliation(s)
- Conrado A Bosman
- Cognitive and Systems Neuroscience Group, Swammerdam Institute for Life Sciences, Center for Neuroscience, Faculty of Science, University of Amsterdam Amsterdam, Netherlands ; Facultad de Ciencias de la Salud, Universidad Autónoma de Chile Santiago, Chile
| | - Francisco Aboitiz
- Departamento de Psiquiatría, Centro Interdisciplinario de Neurociencia, Escuela de Medicina, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile Santiago, Chile
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