Dopamine-Modulated Recurrent Corticoefferent Feedback in Primary Sensory Cortex Promotes Detection of Behaviorally Relevant Stimuli

Abstract

Dopaminergic neurotransmission in primary auditory cortex (AI) has been shown to be involved in learning and memory functions. Moreover, dopaminergic projections and D 1 /D 5 receptor distributions display a layer-dependent organization, suggesting specific functions in the cortical circuitry. However, the circuit effects of dopaminergic neurotransmission in sensory cortex and their possible roles in perception, learning, and memory are largely unknown.Here, we investigated layer-specific circuit effects of dopaminergic neuromodulation using current source density ( Our results show that D 1 /D 5 -mediated dopaminergic modulation in sensory cortex regulates positive recurrent corticoefferent feedback, which enhances states of high, persistent activity in sensory cortex evoked by behaviorally relevant stimuli. In boosting horizontal network interactions, this potentially promotes the readout of task-related information from cortical synapses and improves behavioral stimulus detection.

Spectral breadth and laminar distribution of thalamocortical inputs to A1

“…That is, either the afferents do not express presynaptic GABA-B receptors or the receptors are not sensitive to muscimol at this dose. Note that even prior studies using higher (5 mM) muscimol doses found no difference between the effects of muscimol alone vs. its effects when paired with a drug intended to block any action at GABA-B receptors (Happel et al 2014(Happel et al , 2010. Similarly, intracortical blockade of GABA-B receptors had no effect on the ability of neurons in rat A1 to follow trains of acoustic stimuli, i.e., no evidence for forward suppression mediated by GABA-B receptors (Yao et al 2015).…”

Dopaminergic projections of the subparafascicular thalamic nucleus to the auditory brainstem

“…In the DCN, dopamine can modulate currents that mediate neuronal excitability (Bender et al, 2010), and it has heterogeneous (although largely depressive) effects on extracellular response properties in the IC (Gittelman et al, 2013) and auditory thalamus (Tebecis, 1970). In auditory cortex, dopamine modulation has been shown to help detect salient stimuli (Happel et al, 2014), auditory memory (Schicknick et al, 2012), and synaptic plasticity (Bao et al, 2001). Thus, it is important to fully understand the mechanisms of dopaminergic modulation in the auditory system.…”

Dopamine-Induced Dissociation of BOLD and Neural Activity in Macaque Visual Cortex

“…The increase in neural activity upon systemic DA may be mediated by longrange interactions from higher-order regions (e.g., frontal regions) [5,15]. Large-scale interactions have been reported in other sensory modalities, including the visual, somatosensory, and auditory systems, suggesting that DA prepares the higherorder area for the processing of incoming sensory signals and promotes the readout of task-related information [14][15][16]. Manipulation of prefrontal D1 receptors increased the magnitude, reliability, and selectivity of neuronal responses in V4 [5], and similar mechanisms may play a role in V1.…”

“…DA has been shown to improve the SNR in prefrontal cortex (PFC) and in sensory areas, including V1 [8,[14][15][16], thereby changing detection performance at the behavioral level [8,[16][17][18]. Increased neuronal activity in V1 has been shown to predict the timing of reward delivery, even when the cells were not driven by a visual stimulus [8,18], highlighting the importance of DA for extracting behaviorally relevant information [17,19].…”