scholarly journals Distinct ground state and activated state modes of spiking in forebrain neurons

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Levenstein ◽  
Gabrielle Girardeau ◽  
Jonathan Gornet ◽  
Andres Grosmark ◽  
Roman Huszar ◽  
...  

Neuronal firing patterns have significant spatiotemporal variety with no agreed upon theoretical framework. Using a combined experimental and modeling approach, we found that spike interval statistics can be described by discrete modes of activity. A "ground state" (GS) mode of low-rate spiking is universal among forebrain excitatory neurons and characterized by irregular spiking at a cell-specific rate. In contrast, "activated state" (AS) modes consist of spiking at characteristic timescales and regularity and are specific to neurons in a given region and brain state. We find that the majority of spiking is contributed by GS mode, while neurons can transiently switch to AS spiking in response to stimuli or in coordination with population activity patterns. We hypothesize that GS spiking serves to maintain a persistent backbone of neuronal activity while AS modes support communication functions.

2007 ◽  
Vol 292 (1) ◽  
pp. C508-C516 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frank Funke ◽  
Mathias Dutschmann ◽  
Michael Müller

The pre-Bötzinger complex (PBC) in the rostral ventrolateral medulla contains a kernel involved in respiratory rhythm generation. So far, its respiratory activity has been analyzed predominantly by electrophysiological approaches. Recent advances in fluorescence imaging now allow for the visualization of neuronal population activity in rhythmogenic networks. In the respiratory network, voltage-sensitive dyes have been used mainly, so far, but their low sensitivity prevents an analysis of activity patterns of single neurons during rhythmogenesis. We now have succeeded in using more sensitive Ca2+ imaging to study respiratory neurons in rhythmically active brain stem slices of neonatal rats. For the visualization of neuronal activity, fluo-3 was suited best in terms of neuronal specificity, minimized background fluorescence, and response magnitude. The tissue penetration of fluo-3 was improved by hyperosmolar treatment (100 mM mannitol) during dye loading. Rhythmic population activity was imaged with single-cell resolution using a sensitive charge-coupled device camera and a ×20 objective, and it was correlated with extracellularly recorded mass activity of the contralateral PBC. Correlated optical neuronal activity was obvious online in 29% of slices. Rhythmic neurons located deeper became detectable during offline image processing. Based on their activity patterns, 74% of rhythmic neurons were classified as inspiratory and 26% as expiratory neurons. Our approach is well suited to visualize and correlate the activity of several single cells with respiratory network activity. We demonstrate that neuronal synchronization and possibly even network configurations can be analyzed in a noninvasive approach with single-cell resolution and at frame rates currently not reached by most scanning-based imaging techniques.


2017 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 130-141 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nailya Lotfullina ◽  
Roustem Khazipov

Ethanol induces massive neuroapoptosis in the developing brain. One of the main hypotheses that has been put forward to explain the deleterious actions of ethanol in the immature brain involves an inhibition of neuronal activity. Here, we review recent evidence for this hypothesis obtained in the somatosensory cortex and hippocampus of neonatal rodents. In both structures, ethanol strongly inhibits brain activity. At the doses inducing massive neuroapoptosis, ethanol completely suppresses the early activity patterns of spindle-bursts and gamma oscillations in the neocortex and the early sharp-waves in the hippocampus. The inhibitory effects of ethanol decrease with age and in adult animals, ethanol only mildly depresses neuronal firing and induces delta-wave activity. Suppression of cortical activity in neonatal animals likely involves inhibition of the myoclonic twitches, an important physiological trigger for the early activity bursts, and inhibition of the thalamocortical and intracortical circuits through a potentiation of GABAergic transmission and an inhibition of N-methyl-d-aspartate (NMDA) receptors, that is in keeping with the neuroapoptotic effects of other agents acting on GABA and NMDA receptors. These findings provide support for the hypothesis that the ethanol-induced inhibition of cortical activity is an important pathophysiological mechanism underlying massive neuroapoptosis induced by ethanol in the developing brain.


1993 ◽  
Vol 264 (3) ◽  
pp. R615-R621 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. R. Margraf ◽  
G. R. Lynch

We investigated the effects of daily melatonin (MEL) injection on phase angle of entrainment, duration of wheel-running activity (alpha), and frequency of suprachiasmatic nuclei (SCN) neuronal discharge in the photo-nonresponsive phenotype of the Djungarian hamster, Phodopus sungorus. Photo-nonresponsiveness is characterized by an absence of physiological adjustments to short days (SD). With respect to wheel-running activity, photo-nonresponsive hamsters have a large negative phase angle of entrainment and a compressed alpha under SD. These hamsters also have a delayed nocturnal MEL pulse. These circadian differences are correlated with the daily profile of SCN neuronal activity. In the present experiments, daily MEL injections to photo-nonresponsive hamsters resulted in molt, gonadal regression, and expansion in alpha until entrainment to lights off. Vehicle-injected controls did not exhibit any of these responses. SCN neuronal activity patterns recorded from MEL-injected photo-nonresponders, but not vehicle-injected controls, resembled electrical activity profiles of photoresponsive hamsters. These results demonstrate that MEL induces "photoresponsiveness" in previously photo-nonresponsive hamsters, that MEL modifies circadian behavior to resemble that of photoresponders, and that MEL injections affect the circadian rhythm of SCN neuronal firing.


2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Abeer Dagra ◽  
Douglas R. Miller ◽  
Min Lin ◽  
Adithya Gopinath ◽  
Fatemeh Shaerzadeh ◽  
...  

AbstractPathophysiological damages and loss of function of dopamine neurons precede their demise and contribute to the early phases of Parkinson’s disease. The presence of aberrant intracellular pathological inclusions of the protein α-synuclein within ventral midbrain dopaminergic neurons is one of the cardinal features of Parkinson’s disease. We employed molecular biology, electrophysiology, and live-cell imaging to investigate how excessive α-synuclein expression alters multiple characteristics of dopaminergic neuronal dynamics and dopamine transmission in cultured dopamine neurons conditionally expressing GCaMP6f. We found that overexpression of α-synuclein in mouse (male and female) dopaminergic neurons altered neuronal firing properties, calcium dynamics, dopamine release, protein expression, and morphology. Moreover, prolonged exposure to the D2 receptor agonist, quinpirole, rescues many of the alterations induced by α-synuclein overexpression. These studies demonstrate that α-synuclein dysregulation of neuronal activity contributes to the vulnerability of dopaminergic neurons and that modulation of D2 receptor activity can ameliorate the pathophysiology. These findings provide mechanistic insights into the insidious changes in dopaminergic neuronal activity and neuronal loss that characterize Parkinson’s disease progression with significant therapeutic implications.


2008 ◽  
Vol 6 (37) ◽  
pp. 655-668 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cristina Savin ◽  
Jochen Triesch ◽  
Michael Meyer-Hermann

Homeostatic regulation of neuronal activity is fundamental for the stable functioning of the cerebral cortex. One form of homeostatic synaptic scaling has been recently shown to be mediated by glial cells that interact with neurons through the diffusible messenger tumour necrosis factor-α (TNF-α). Interestingly, TNF-α is also used by the immune system as a pro-inflammatory messenger, suggesting potential interactions between immune system signalling and the homeostatic regulation of neuronal activity. We present the first computational model of neuron–glia interaction in TNF-α-mediated synaptic scaling. The model shows how under normal conditions the homeostatic mechanism is effective in balancing network activity. After chronic immune activation or TNF-α overexpression by glia, however, the network develops seizure-like activity patterns. This may explain why under certain conditions brain inflammation increases the risk of seizures. Additionally, the model shows that TNF-α diffusion may be responsible for epileptogenesis after localized brain lesions.


eLife ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher W Thomas ◽  
Mathilde CC Guillaumin ◽  
Laura E McKillop ◽  
Peter Achermann ◽  
Vladyslav V Vyazovskiy

Sleep homeostasis manifests as a relative constancy of its daily amount and intensity. Theoretical descriptions define ‘Process S’, a variable with dynamics dependent on global sleep-wake history, and reflected in electroencephalogram (EEG) slow wave activity (SWA, 0.5–4 Hz) during sleep. The notion of sleep as a local, activity-dependent process suggests that activity history must be integrated to determine the dynamics of global Process S. Here, we developed novel mathematical models of Process S based on cortical activity recorded in freely behaving mice, describing local Process S as a function of the deviation of neuronal firing rates from a locally defined set-point, independent of global sleep-wake state. Averaging locally derived Processes S and their rate parameters yielded values resembling those obtained from EEG SWA and global vigilance states. We conclude that local Process S dynamics reflects neuronal activity integrated over time, and global Process S reflects local processes integrated over space.


Author(s):  
Daniel Deitch ◽  
Alon Rubin ◽  
Yaniv Ziv

AbstractNeuronal representations in the hippocampus and related structures gradually change over time despite no changes in the environment or behavior. The extent to which such ‘representational drift’ occurs in sensory cortical areas and whether the hierarchy of information flow across areas affects neural-code stability have remained elusive. Here, we address these questions by analyzing large-scale optical and electrophysiological recordings from six visual cortical areas in behaving mice that were repeatedly presented with the same natural movies. We found representational drift over timescales spanning minutes to days across multiple visual areas. The drift was driven mostly by changes in individual cells’ activity rates, while their tuning changed to a lesser extent. Despite these changes, the structure of relationships between the population activity patterns remained stable and stereotypic, allowing robust maintenance of information over time. Such population-level organization may underlie stable visual perception in the face of continuous changes in neuronal responses.


1982 ◽  
Vol 2 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 197-212 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael D. Koontz ◽  
John P. Robinson

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