Divisions of Identified Parvalbumin-Expressing Basket Cells during Working Memory-Guided Decision Making

Abstract

Parvalbumin-expressing basket cells tightly control cortical networks and fire remarkably stereotyped during network oscillations and simple behaviors. How can these cells support multifaceted situations with different behavioral options and complex temporal sequences? We recorded from identified parvalbumin-expressing basket cells in prefrontal cortex of freely moving rats performing a multidimensional delayed cue-matching-to-place task, juxtacellularly filled recorded neurons for unequivocal histological identification, and determined their activity during temporally structured task episodes, associative working-memory, and stimulus-guided choice behavior. We show that parvalbumin-expressing basket cells do not fire homogenously, but individual cells were recruited or inhibited during different task episodes. Firing of individual basket cells was correlated with amount of presynaptic VIP (vasoactive intestinal polypeptide)-expressing GABAergic input. Together with subsets of pyramidal neurons, activity of basket cells differentiated for sequential actions and stimulus-guided choice behavior. Thus, interneurons of the same cell type can be recruited into different neuronal ensembles with distinct firing patterns to support multi-layered cognitive computations.

Parvalbumin Interneuron Plasticity for Consolidation of Reinforced Learning

“…Although the functional implications of the selective output connectivity of PV neuron subpopulations remain to be determined, our findings would be consistent with the notion that the distinct excitation/inhibition input ratios onto early-and late-born PV neurons and the specific regulation upon learning might reflect information flow through functionally distinct microcircuits ( Fig. 3; Mizuseki et al 2011;Lapray et al 2012;Knierim et al 2014;Cembrowski et al 2016;Lagler et al 2016;English et al 2017;Soltesz and Losonczy 2018).…”

Asymmetric effects of activating and inactivating cortical interneurons

“…In this study, for example, a small population of the putative Sst+ and Pvalb+ interneurons fired weakly during the auditory stimulus (with a mean firing rate of less than 5 Hz), but dramatically increased their firing, often well above 30 Hz, with light stimulation. Moreover, recent work suggests that cortical Sst+ and Pvalb+ populations may contain subgroups that are differentially driven by patterns of cortical activity (Kwan and Dan, 2012), stimulus features (Runyan et al, 2010), and task-related behaviors (Kvitsiani et al, 2013; Lagler et al, 2016), suggesting that genetically-targeted activation of these cells may recruit more than one functional population. Thus, activation of these heterogeneous populations may strengthen different sets of functions than those weakened by their inactivation, leading to inconsistent conclusions regarding their normal function.…”

Parvalbumin-Expressing GABAergic Neurons in Primary Motor Cortex Signal Reaching

“…In mouse sensory and prefrontal cortex, genetically identified GABAergic neurons have been shown to have distinct roles in information processing and discrete firing dynamics (Fu et al., 2014, Gentet et al., 2012, Isaacson and Scanziani, 2011, Kepecs and Fishell, 2014, Kvitsiani et al., 2013, Lagler et al., 2016, Lee et al., 2012, Lee et al., 2013, Pi et al., 2013, Pinto and Dan, 2015, Polack et al., 2013, Sachidhanandam et al., 2016). However, the activity of GABAergic neuronal subtypes and their impact on M1 during voluntary movement are unclear.…”