scholarly journals Inhibitory Units: An Organizing Nidus for Feature-Selective Sub-Networks in Area V1

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ganna Palagina ◽  
Jochen F. Meyer ◽  
Stelios M. Smirnakis

SUMMARYSensory stimuli are encoded by the joint firing of neuronal groups composed of pyramidal cells and interneurons, rather than single isolated neurons (Uhlhaas et al, 2009, Buzsaki, 2010). However, the principles by which these groups are organized to encode information remain poorly understood. A leading hypothesis is that similarly tuned pyramidal cells that preferentially connect to each other may form multi-cellular encoding units yoked to a similar purpose. The existence of such groups would be reflected on the profile of spontaneous events observed in neocortical networks. We used 2-photon calcium imaging to study spontaneous population-burst events in layer 2/3 of mouse area V1 during postnatal maturation (postnatal day 8–52). Throughout the period examined both size and duration of spontaneously occurring population-bursts formed scale-free distributions obeying a power law. The same was true for the degree of “functional connectivity,” a measure of pairwise synchrony across cells. These observations are consistent with a hierarchical small-world-net architecture, characterized by groups of cells with high local connectivity (“small worlds”, cliques) connected to each other via a restricted number of “hub” cells” (Bonifazi et al., 2009, Sporns, 2011, Luce & Perry, 1949). To identify candidate “small world” groups we searched for cells whose calcium events had a consistent temporal relationship to events recorded from local inhibitory interneurons. This was guided by the intuition that groups of neurons whose synchronous firing represents a “temporally coherent computational unit” (or feature) ought to be inhibited together. This strategy allowed us to identify clusters of pyramidal neurons whose firing is temporally “linked” to one or more local interneurons. These “small-world” clusters did not remain static, during postnatal development: both cluster size and overlap with other clusters decreased over time as pyramidal neurons became progressively more selective, “linking” to fewer neighboring interneurons. Notably, pyramidal neurons in a cluster show higher tuning function similarity than expected with each other and with their “linked” interneurons. Our findings suggest that spontaneous population events in the visual cortex are shaped by “small-world” networks of pyramidal neurons that share functional properties and work in concert with one or more local interneurons. We argue that such groups represent a fundamental neocortical unit of computation at the population level.

2014 ◽  
Vol 111 (11) ◽  
pp. 2161-2163 ◽  
Author(s):  
Neir Eshel ◽  
Ju Tian

The prefrontal cortex (PFC) maintains information about relevant sensory stimuli, in a process thought to rely on dopamine release. In a recent paper, Jacob et al. ( J Neurosci 33: 13724–13734, 2013) demonstrated one way in which dopamine might facilitate this process. The authors recorded from PFC neurons in monkeys during local application of dopamine. They found that dopamine increases the gain of sensory-evoked responses in putative pyramidal neurons in PFC, potentially by inhibiting local interneurons.


2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Bastiaan van der Veen ◽  
Sampath K. T. Kapanaiah ◽  
Kasyoka Kilonzo ◽  
Peter Steele-Perkins ◽  
Martin M. Jendryka ◽  
...  

AbstractPathological impulsivity is a debilitating symptom of multiple psychiatric diseases with few effective treatment options. To identify druggable receptors with anti-impulsive action we developed a systematic target discovery approach combining behavioural chemogenetics and gene expression analysis. Spatially restricted inhibition of three subdivisions of the prefrontal cortex of mice revealed that the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) regulates premature responding, a form of motor impulsivity. Probing three G-protein cascades with designer receptors, we found that the activation of Gi-signalling in layer-5 pyramidal cells (L5-PCs) of the ACC strongly, reproducibly, and selectively decreased challenge-induced impulsivity. Differential gene expression analysis across murine ACC cell-types and 402 GPCRs revealed that - among Gi-coupled receptor-encoding genes - Grm2 is the most selectively expressed in L5-PCs while alternative targets were scarce. Validating our approach, we confirmed that mGluR2 activation reduced premature responding. These results suggest Gi-coupled receptors in ACC L5-PCs as therapeutic targets for impulse control disorders.


Author(s):  
Vasiliki G. Vrana ◽  
Dimitrios A. Kydros ◽  
Evangelos C. Kehris ◽  
Anastasios-Ioannis T. Theocharidis ◽  
George I. Kavavasilis

Pictures speak louder than words. In this fast-moving world where people hardly have time to read anything, photo-sharing sites become more and more popular. Instagram is being used by millions of people and has created a “sharing ecosystem” that also encourages curation, expression, and produces feedback. Museums are moving quickly to integrate Instagram into their marketing strategies, provide information, engage with audience and connect to other museums Instagram accounts. Taking into consideration that people may not see museum accounts in the same way that the other museum accounts do, the article first describes accounts' performance of the top, most visited museums worldwide and next investigates their interconnection. The analysis uses techniques from social network analysis, including visualization algorithms and calculations of well-established metrics. The research reveals the most important modes of the network by calculating the appropriate centrality metrics and shows that the network formed by the museum Instagram accounts is a scale–free small world network.


2008 ◽  
Vol 22 (05) ◽  
pp. 553-560 ◽  
Author(s):  
WU-JIE YUAN ◽  
XIAO-SHU LUO ◽  
PIN-QUN JIANG ◽  
BING-HONG WANG ◽  
JIN-QING FANG

When being constructed, complex dynamical networks can lose stability in the sense of Lyapunov (i. s. L.) due to positive feedback. Thus, there is much important worthiness in the theory and applications of complex dynamical networks to study the stability. In this paper, according to dissipative system criteria, we give the stability condition in general complex dynamical networks, especially, in NW small-world and BA scale-free networks. The results of theoretical analysis and numerical simulation show that the stability i. s. L. depends on the maximal connectivity of the network. Finally, we show a numerical example to verify our theoretical results.


2015 ◽  
Vol 29 (32) ◽  
pp. 1550234
Author(s):  
Yunhua Liao ◽  
Xiaoliang Xie

The lattice gas model and the monomer-dimer model are two classical models in statistical mechanics. It is well known that the partition functions of these two models are associated with the independence polynomial and the matching polynomial in graph theory, respectively. Both polynomials have been shown to belong to the “[Formula: see text]-complete” class, which indicate the problems are computationally “intractable”. We consider these two polynomials of the Koch networks which are scale-free with small-world effects. Explicit recurrences are derived, and explicit formulae are presented for the number of independent sets of a certain type.


Complexity ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 2018 ◽  
pp. 1-14 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiuwen Fu ◽  
Yongsheng Yang ◽  
Haiqing Yao

Previous research of wireless sensor networks (WSNs) invulnerability mainly focuses on the static topology, while ignoring the cascading process of the network caused by the dynamic changes of load. Therefore, given the realistic features of WSNs, in this paper we research the invulnerability of WSNs with respect to cascading failures based on the coupled map lattice (CML). The invulnerability and the cascading process of four types of network topologies (i.e., random network, small-world network, homogenous scale-free network, and heterogeneous scale-free network) under various attack schemes (i.e., random attack, max-degree attack, and max-status attack) are investigated, respectively. The simulation results demonstrate that the rise of interference R and coupling coefficient ε will increase the risks of cascading failures. Cascading threshold values Rc and εc exist, where cascading failures will spread to the entire network when R>Rc or ε>εc. When facing a random attack or max-status attack, the network with higher heterogeneity tends to have a stronger invulnerability towards cascading failures. Conversely, when facing a max-degree attack, the network with higher uniformity tends to have a better performance. Besides that, we have also proved that the spreading speed of cascading failures is inversely proportional to the average path length of the network and the increase of average degree k can improve the network invulnerability.


2013 ◽  
Vol 110 (10) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ralph Stoop ◽  
Victor Saase ◽  
Clemens Wagner ◽  
Britta Stoop ◽  
Ruedi Stoop

2021 ◽  
Vol 118 (52) ◽  
pp. e2112212118
Author(s):  
Jiseok Lee ◽  
Joanna Urban-Ciecko ◽  
Eunsol Park ◽  
Mo Zhu ◽  
Stephanie E. Myal ◽  
...  

Immediate-early gene (IEG) expression has been used to identify small neural ensembles linked to a particular experience, based on the principle that a selective subset of activated neurons will encode specific memories or behavioral responses. The majority of these studies have focused on “engrams” in higher-order brain areas where more abstract or convergent sensory information is represented, such as the hippocampus, prefrontal cortex, or amygdala. In primary sensory cortex, IEG expression can label neurons that are responsive to specific sensory stimuli, but experience-dependent shaping of neural ensembles marked by IEG expression has not been demonstrated. Here, we use a fosGFP transgenic mouse to longitudinally monitor in vivo expression of the activity-dependent gene c-fos in superficial layers (L2/3) of primary somatosensory cortex (S1) during a whisker-dependent learning task. We find that sensory association training does not detectably alter fosGFP expression in L2/3 neurons. Although training broadly enhances thalamocortical synaptic strength in pyramidal neurons, we find that synapses onto fosGFP+ neurons are not selectively increased by training; rather, synaptic strengthening is concentrated in fosGFP− neurons. Taken together, these data indicate that expression of the IEG reporter fosGFP does not facilitate identification of a learning-specific engram in L2/3 in barrel cortex during whisker-dependent sensory association learning.


2005 ◽  
Vol 94 (5) ◽  
pp. 3357-3367 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elodie Christophe ◽  
Nathalie Doerflinger ◽  
Daniel J. Lavery ◽  
Zoltán Molnár ◽  
Serge Charpak ◽  
...  

Previous studies have shown that layer V pyramidal neurons projecting either to subcortical structures or the contralateral cortex undergo different morphological and electrophysiological patterns of development during the first three postnatal weeks. To isolate the determinants of this differential maturation, we analyzed the gene expression and intrinsic membrane properties of layer V pyramidal neurons projecting either to the superior colliculus (SC cells) or the contralateral cortex (CC cells) by combining whole cell recordings and single-cell RT-PCR in acute slices prepared from postnatal day (P) 5–7 or P21–30 old mice. Among the 24 genes tested, the calcium channel subunits α1B and α1C, the protease Nexin 1, and the calcium-binding protein calbindin were differentially expressed in adult SC and CC cells and the potassium channel subunit Kv4.3 was expressed preferentially in CC cells at both stages of development. Intrinsic membrane properties, including input resistance, amplitude of the hyperpolarization-activated current, and action potential threshold, differed quantitatively between the two populations as early as from the first postnatal week and persisted throughout adulthood. However, the two cell types had similar regular action potential firing behaviors at all developmental stages. Surprisingly, when we increased the duration of anesthesia with ketamine–xylazine or pentobarbital before decapitation, a proportion of mature SC cells, but not CC cells, fired bursts of action potentials. Together these results indicate that the two populations of layer V pyramidal neurons already start to differ during the first postnatal week and exhibit different firing capabilities after anesthesia.


1997 ◽  
Vol 78 (3) ◽  
pp. 1735-1739 ◽  
Author(s):  
Denis Paré ◽  
Elen Lebel ◽  
Eric J. Lang

Paré, Denis, Elen LeBel, and Eric J. Lang. Differential impact of miniature synaptic potentials on the somata and dendrites of pyramidal neurons in vivo. J. Neurophysiol. 78: 1735–1739, 1997. We studied the impact of transmitter release resistant to tetrodotoxin (TTX) in morphologically identified neocortical pyramidal neurons recorded intracellularly in barbiturate-anesthetized cats. It was observed that TTX-resistant release occurs in pyramidal neurons in vivo and at much higher frequencies than was previously reported in vitro. Further, in agreement with previous findings indicating that GABAergic and glutamatergic synapses are differentially distributed in the somata and dendrites of pyramidal cells, we found that most miniature synaptic potentials were sensitive to γ-aminobutyric acid-A (GABAA) or α-amino-3-hydroxy-5-methyl-4-isoxazolepropionic acid (AMPA) antagonists in presumed somatic and dendritic impalements, respectively. Pharmacological blockage of spontaneous synaptic events produced large increases in input resistance that were more important in dendritic (≈50%) than somatic (≈10%) impalements. These findings imply that in the intact brain, pyramidal neurons are submitted to an intense spike-independent synaptic bombardment that decreases the space constant of the cells. These results should be taken into account when extrapolating in vitro findings to intact brains.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document