Focus Program Translational Neuroscience (FTN) and Institute for Microscopic Anatomy and Neurobiology, Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Mainz D-55128, Germany.
GRADE Brain, Goethe Graduate Academy and FB 15, Goethe University Frankfurt, Frankfurt D-60438, Germany.
eNeuro. 2017 Dec 26;4(6). doi: 10.1523/ENEURO.0293-16.2017. eCollection 2017 Nov-Dec.
The mammalian thalamocortical system generates intrinsic activity reflecting different states of excitability, arising from changes in the membrane potentials of underlying neuronal networks. Fluctuations between these states occur spontaneously, regularly, and frequently throughout awake periods and influence stimulus encoding, information processing, and neuronal and behavioral responses. Changes of pupil size have recently been identified as a reliable marker of underlying neuronal membrane potential and thus can encode associated network state changes in rodent cortex. This suggests that pupillometry, a ubiquitous measure of pupil dilation in cognitive neuroscience, could be used as an index for network state fluctuations also for human brain signals. Considering this variable may explain task-independent variance in neuronal and behavioral signals that were previously disregarded as noise.
哺乳动物丘脑皮质系统产生内在活动，反映出基础神经网络膜电位变化引起的不同兴奋状态。这些状态之间的波动自发、有规律且频繁地发生在清醒期，影响刺激编码、信息处理以及神经元和行为反应。瞳孔大小的变化最近被确定为基础神经元膜电位的可靠标志物，因此可以编码啮齿动物皮层中相关的网络状态变化。这表明瞳孔测量法，一种认知神经科学中广泛用于测量瞳孔扩张的方法，可以作为网络状态波动的指标，也可以用于人类大脑信号。考虑到这个变量，可能可以解释以前被视为噪声的神经元和行为信号中与任务无关的方差。
