Center for Brain and Cognition, Computational Neuroscience Group, Department of Information and Communication Technologies, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain.
Institut d'Investigacions Biomèdiques August Pi i Sunyer (IDIBAPS), Barcelona, Spain.
Elife. 2020 Mar 17;9:e53268. doi: 10.7554/eLife.53268.
Previous research showed that spontaneous neuronal activity presents sloppiness: the collective behavior is strongly determined by a small number of parameter combinations, defined as 'stiff' dimensions, while it is insensitive to many others ('sloppy' dimensions). Here, we analyzed neural population activity from the auditory cortex of anesthetized rats while the brain spontaneously transited through different synchronized and desynchronized states and intermittently received sensory inputs. We showed that cortical state transitions were determined by changes in stiff parameters associated with the activity of a core of neurons with low responses to stimuli and high centrality within the observed network. In contrast, stimulus-evoked responses evolved along sloppy dimensions associated with the activity of neurons with low centrality and displaying large ongoing and stimulus-evoked fluctuations without affecting the integrity of the network. Our results shed light on the interplay among stability, flexibility, and responsiveness of neuronal collective dynamics during intrinsic and induced activity.
先前的研究表明，自发性神经元活动表现出迟钝性：集体行为主要由少数几个参数组合决定，这些参数被定义为“刚性”维度，而对许多其他参数则不敏感（“松弛”维度）。在这里，我们分析了麻醉大鼠听觉皮层的神经群体活动，此时大脑会自发地经历不同的同步和去同步状态，并间歇性地接收感觉输入。我们表明，皮质状态的转变是由与一组对刺激反应低、在观察到的网络中中心性高的神经元的活动相关的刚性参数的变化决定的。相比之下，刺激诱发的反应沿着与神经元活动相关的松弛维度演变，这些神经元的中心性低，表现出大的持续和刺激诱发的波动，而不会影响网络的完整性。我们的研究结果揭示了在内在和诱导活动期间神经元集体动力学的稳定性、灵活性和响应性之间的相互作用。
