Paz Rony, Bauer Elizabeth P, Paré Denis
Department of Neurobiology, The Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot 76100, Israel.
J Neurophysiol. 2009 May;101(5):2507-15. doi: 10.1152/jn.91259.2008. Epub 2009 Feb 25.
Brain function depends on coordinated interactions in spatially distributed neuronal populations. Thanks to recent technological advances, it is now possible to monitor the activity of large groups of neurons. Although significant progress has been made in analyzing neuronal interactions across large samples of simultaneously recorded cells, most of the available approaches do not allow direct visualization of multidimensional correlations in the time domain. This study describes a novel analysis technique, termed four-dimensional spike-triggered joint histogram (4-d STJH) that permits the study of co-modulations of unit activity across four simultaneously recorded brain regions while preserving the time domain. To illustrate how this technique works, we recorded simultaneously from basolateral amygdala (BLA) and medial prefrontal (mPFC), as well as perirhinal and entorhinal neurons in animals learning an appetitive trace-conditioning task. Using the 4d-STJH, we show that coincident activity in the BLA and mPFC modulates the interactions between perirhinal and entorhinal neurons in a manner that cannot be explained by a linear combination of the individual BLA and mPFC-related modulations. We conclude with a discussion of the strengths and limitations of 4-d STJH and offer recommendations regarding optimal conditions for its use.
脑功能依赖于空间分布的神经元群体中的协调相互作用。由于最近的技术进步，现在能够监测大量神经元的活动。尽管在分析同时记录的大量细胞样本中的神经元相互作用方面已经取得了显著进展，但大多数现有方法不允许在时域中直接可视化多维相关性。本研究描述了一种新颖的分析技术，称为四维峰触发联合直方图（4-d STJH），它允许在保留时域的同时研究四个同时记录的脑区中单位活动的共调制。为了说明该技术的工作原理，我们在动物学习一种食欲性痕迹条件任务时，同时记录了基底外侧杏仁核（BLA）和内侧前额叶（mPFC）以及鼻周和内嗅神经元的活动。使用4d-STJH，我们表明BLA和mPFC中的同步活动以一种不能由个体BLA和mPFC相关调制的线性组合来解释的方式调节鼻周和内嗅神经元之间的相互作用。我们最后讨论了4-d STJH的优点和局限性，并就其使用的最佳条件提供了建议。
