Department of Neurobiology, Institute of Life Sciences, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel.
Nat Neurosci. 2010 Mar;13(3):353-60. doi: 10.1038/nn.2484. Epub 2010 Jan 31.
Cortical processing of auditory stimuli involves large populations of neurons with distinct individual response profiles. However, the functional organization and dynamics of local populations in the auditory cortex have remained largely unknown. Using in vivo two-photon calcium imaging, we examined the response profiles and network dynamics of layer 2/3 neurons in the primary auditory cortex (A1) of mice in response to pure tones. We found that local populations in A1 were highly heterogeneous in the large-scale tonotopic organization. Despite the spatial heterogeneity, the tendency of neurons to respond together (measured as noise correlation) was high on average. This functional organization and high levels of noise correlations are consistent with the existence of partially overlapping cortical subnetworks. Our findings may account for apparent discrepancies between ordered large-scale organization and local heterogeneity.
听觉刺激的皮质处理涉及具有不同个体反应特征的大量神经元群体。然而，听觉皮层中局部群体的功能组织和动力学仍然很大程度上未知。使用体内双光子钙成像，我们研究了小鼠初级听觉皮层（A1）中 2/3 层神经元对纯音的反应特征和网络动力学。我们发现，A1 中的局部群体在大尺度音位组织中具有高度的异质性。尽管存在空间异质性，但神经元协同反应的趋势（以噪声相关性来衡量）平均而言仍然很高。这种功能组织和高水平的噪声相关性与部分重叠的皮质子网的存在一致。我们的研究结果可能解释了有序的大尺度组织和局部异质性之间明显的差异。
