Neuronal avalanches organize as nested theta- and beta/gamma-oscillations during development of cortical layer 2/3

Abstract

Maturation of the cerebral cortex involves the spontaneous emergence of distinct patterns of neuronal synchronization, which regulate neuronal differentiation, synapse formation, and serve as a substrate for information processing. The intrinsic activity patterns that characterize the maturation of cortical layer 2/3 are poorly understood. By using microelectrode array recordings in vivo and in vitro, we show that this development is marked by the emergence of nested -and ␤/␥-oscillations that require NMDAand GABA A-mediated synaptic transmission. The oscillations organized as neuronal avalanches, i.e., they were synchronized across cortical sites forming diverse and millisecond-precise spatiotemporal patterns that distributed in sizes according to a power law with a slope of ؊1.5. The correspondence between nested oscillations and neuronal avalanches required activation of the dopamine D 1 receptor. We suggest that the repetitive formation of neuronal avalanches provides an intrinsic template for the selective linking of external inputs to developing superficial layers.dopamine ͉ in vivo ͉ multielectrode array ͉ organotypic culture ͉ rat

Spontaneous cortical activity in awake monkeys composed of neuronal avalanches

“…The activity is similar to that observed during stimulus presentation (1, 6-8), incorporates previously acquired information (9), and carries information about the underlying neuronal network [for review see (10)]. Indeed, correlations during resting state activity are altered in disease states such as schizophrenia or chronic pain (11, 12), which raises the question whether there is a general framework that describes the statistics in the spatiotemporal organization of this dynamics.Recently, we found that spontaneous cortical activity in slice cultures, acute slices, and in the anesthetized rat in vivo has a scale-invariant dynamics called neuronal avalanches (13)(14)(15). These spontaneous bursts of synchronized activity occur in clusters of sizes s (where s is the number of active sites in an electrode array) that distribute according to a power law with exponent ␣:…”

“…Recently, we found that spontaneous cortical activity in slice cultures, acute slices, and in the anesthetized rat in vivo has a scale-invariant dynamics called neuronal avalanches (13)(14)(15). These spontaneous bursts of synchronized activity occur in clusters of sizes s (where s is the number of active sites in an electrode array) that distribute according to a power law with exponent ␣:…”

Observed network dynamics from altering the balance between excitatory and inhibitory neurons in cultured networks

“…been made in understanding the formation of bacterial colonies as well as characterizing spontaneous and evoked activity in neural circuits [4][5][6]. Complex activity patterns have been shown to emerge from the self-organization of neurobiological networks and can persist for hours [7,8].…”

Adaptation to sensory input tunes visual cortex to criticality

“…This could be achieved by some 'top-down' mechanism (for example, neuromodulators such as dopamine 29 ) that tunes the network or as the result of local self-organization 14,16,30,31 . In either case, one concern with this hypothesis has been that, theoretically, the critical regime occupies an infinitesimal volume in state space (the boundary between two different regimes), which may be too small a target to hit for a real biological tuning process contending with noise and imperfections.…”