Sadeh Sadra, Clopath Claudia
Bioengineering Department, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom.
Elife. 2020 Feb 19;9:e52757. doi: 10.7554/eLife.52757.
Perturbation of neuronal activity is key to understanding the brain's functional properties, however, intervention studies typically perturb neurons in a nonspecific manner. Recent optogenetics techniques have enabled patterned perturbations, in which specific patterns of activity can be invoked in identified target neurons to reveal more specific cortical function. Here, we argue that patterned perturbation of neurons is in fact necessary to reveal the specific dynamics of inhibitory stabilization, emerging in cortical networks with strong excitatory and inhibitory functional subnetworks, as recently reported in mouse visual cortex. We propose a specific perturbative signature of these networks and investigate how this can be measured under different experimental conditions. Functionally, rapid spontaneous transitions between selective ensembles of neurons emerge in such networks, consistent with experimental results. Our study outlines the dynamical and functional properties of feature-specific inhibitory-stabilized networks, and suggests experimental protocols that can be used to detect them in the intact cortex.
神经元活动的扰动是理解大脑功能特性的关键，然而，干预研究通常以非特异性方式扰动神经元。最近的光遗传学技术实现了模式化扰动，即可以在已识别的目标神经元中引发特定的活动模式，以揭示更具体的皮层功能。在这里，我们认为，正如最近在小鼠视觉皮层中所报道的那样，对神经元进行模式化扰动实际上是揭示抑制性稳定的特定动力学所必需的，这种抑制性稳定出现在具有强兴奋性和抑制性功能子网的皮层网络中。我们提出了这些网络的一种特定扰动特征，并研究如何在不同的实验条件下对其进行测量。在功能上，此类网络中出现了神经元选择性集合之间的快速自发转换，这与实验结果一致。我们的研究概述了特征特异性抑制性稳定网络的动力学和功能特性，并提出了可用于在完整皮层中检测它们的实验方案。
