Rapid Changes in Thalamic Firing Synchrony during Repetitive Whisker Stimulation

Temereanca, Simona; Brown, Emery N.; Simons, Daniel J.

doi:10.1523/jneurosci.1586-08.2008

Cited by 72 publications

(87 citation statements)

References 40 publications

(71 reference statements)

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“…Accordingly, first-spike synchrony among thalamic cells activated by the same stimulus angle was identified as the main factor that determines the angular tuning of barrel neurons (Temereanca et al, 2008). This is supported by intracellular recording which showed that as direction diverges from the preferred direction vibrissa-evoked EPSPs in barrel neurons decrease in amplitude and increase in onset latency (Wilent and Contreras, 2005).…”

Section: Rate Code Versus Latency Codementioning

confidence: 74%

Feedforward Inhibition Determines the Angular Tuning of Vibrissal Responses in the Principal Trigeminal Nucleus

Bellavance¹,

Demers²,

Deschênes³

2010

J. Neurosci.

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Trigeminal neurons that relay vibrissal messages to the thalamus receive input from first-order afferents that are tuned to different directions of whisker motion. This raises the question of how directional tuning is maintained in central relay stations of the whisker system. In the present study we performed a detailed analysis of the angular tuning properties of cells in the principal trigeminal nucleus of the rat. We found that stimulus direction systematically influences response latency, so that the degree of directional tuning and the preferred deflection angle computed with first-spike latency yielded results nearly similar to those obtained with spike counts. Furthermore, we found that inhibition sharpens directional selectivity, and that pharmacological blockade of inhibition markedly decreases the angular tuning of cellular responses. These results indicate that the angular tuning of cells in the first relay station of the vibrissal system is determined by fast feedforward inhibition, which shapes excitatory inputs at the very beginning of synaptic integration.

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Section: Rate Code Versus Latency Codementioning

confidence: 74%

Feedforward Inhibition Determines the Angular Tuning of Vibrissal Responses in the Principal Trigeminal Nucleus

Bellavance¹,

Demers²,

Deschênes³

2010

J. Neurosci.

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“…For example, each channel could reflect a different activation mode of subcortical sensory inputs, corresponding to different categories of stimulus events or features. Synchronous thalamocortical activation by strong stimulus events could trigger or modulate slow fluctuations (MacLean et al, 2005;Bruno and Sakmann, 2006;Hasenstaub et al, 2007;Reig and SanchezVives, 2007;Rigas and Castro-Alamancos, 2007;Temereanca et al, 2008;Hirata and Castro-Alamancos, 2010). Meanwhile, finer-scale signals could stem from activation of a smaller fraction of afferents, in response to different, more frequent stimulus events.…”

Section: Different Channels For Input Informationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sensory Input Drives Multiple Intracellular Information Streams in Somatosensory Cortex

Alenda

Molano-Mazón²,

Panzeri³

et al. 2010

J. Neurosci.

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Stable perception arises from the interaction between sensory inputs and internal activity fluctuations in cortex. Here we analyzed how different types of activity contribute to cortical sensory processing at the cellular scale. We performed whole-cell recordings in the barrel cortex of anesthetized rats while applying ongoing whisker stimulation and measured the information conveyed about the time-varying stimulus by different types of input (membrane potential) and output (spiking) signals. We found that substantial, comparable amounts of incoming information are carried by two types of membrane potential signal: slow, large (up-down state) fluctuations, and faster (Ͼ20 Hz), smaller-amplitude synaptic activity. Both types of activity fluctuation are therefore significantly driven by the stimulus on an ongoing basis. Each stream conveys essentially independent information. Output (spiking) information is contained in spike timing not just relative to the stimulus but also relative to membrane potential fluctuations. Information transfer is favored in up states relative to down states. Thus, slow, ongoing activity fluctuations and finer-scale synaptic activity generate multiple channels for incoming and outgoing information within barrel cortex neurons during ongoing stimulation.

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“…choice probability | neurometrics | psychophysics D etection of a sensory stimulus arises from evoked neural activity starting in the sensory receptors (1) and spanning several subcortical relay stations up to the cortex (2). Previous studies have described the neural activity of relay neurons within the sensory thalamus and its association with cortical activity; however, most of these studies were performed in anesthetized animals (3)(4)(5)(6)(7). Only a few studies have recorded thalamic neural activity from behaving subjects (8)(9)(10)(11).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Neural coding and perceptual detection in the primate somatosensory thalamus

Vázquez

Zainos

Álvarez

et al. 2012

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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The contribution of the sensory thalamus to perception and decision making is not well understood. We addressed this problem by recording single neurons in the ventral posterior lateral (VPL) nucleus of the somatosensory thalamus while trained monkeys judged the presence or absence of a vibrotactile stimulus of variable amplitude applied to the skin of a fingertip. We found that neurons in the VPL nucleus modulated their firing rate as a function of stimulus amplitude, and that such modulations accounted for the monkeys' overall psychophysical performance. These neural responses did not predict the animals' decision reports in individual trials, however. Moreover, the sensitivity to changes in stimulus amplitude was similar when the monkeys' performed the detection task and when they were not required to report stimulus detection. These results suggest that the primate somatosensory thalamus likely provides a reliable neural representation of the sensory input to the cerebral cortex, where sensory information is transformed and combined with other cognitive components associated with behavioral performance. choice probability | neurometrics | psychophysics D etection of a sensory stimulus arises from evoked neural activity starting in the sensory receptors (1) and spanning several subcortical relay stations up to the cortex (2). Previous studies have described the neural activity of relay neurons within the sensory thalamus and its association with cortical activity; however, most of these studies were performed in anesthetized animals (3-7). Only a few studies have recorded thalamic neural activity from behaving subjects (8-11). Thus, the relationship between neuronal activity in the sensory thalamus and a subject's performance is not clear. In the case of the primate somatosensory thalamus, it is not known how neurons in the primate ventral posterior lateral (VPL) nucleus encode tactile stimuli and impact the animal's psychophysical behavior.To further investigate this relationship, we recorded the activity of single neurons in the VPL nucleus while trained monkeys reported the presence or absence of a mechanical vibration of variable amplitude applied to the skin of a fingertip (2). This task allowed us to study how the firing activity that encodes features of the stimulus is related to the animal's psychophysical performance and decision making capacity. We found that VPL neurons with either quickly adapting (QA) or slowly adapting (SA) response properties modulate their firing rates as functions of stimulus amplitude. On average, these modulations accounted for the monkeys' detection performance, in that neural and behavioral sensitivities were statistically the same, although the sensitivity of most neurons was lower than that of the monkeys when relatively short integration windows were used to measure the rate modulations. Moreover, variations in the firing rate of VPL neurons did not predict the monkeys' perceptual judgments or motor reports. Finally, the sensitivity to changes in stimulus amplitude was...

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Rapid Changes in Thalamic Firing Synchrony during Repetitive Whisker Stimulation

Cited by 72 publications

References 40 publications

Feedforward Inhibition Determines the Angular Tuning of Vibrissal Responses in the Principal Trigeminal Nucleus

Feedforward Inhibition Determines the Angular Tuning of Vibrissal Responses in the Principal Trigeminal Nucleus

Sensory Input Drives Multiple Intracellular Information Streams in Somatosensory Cortex

Neural coding and perceptual detection in the primate somatosensory thalamus

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