Avitan Lilach, Stringer Carsen
Edmond and Lily Safra Center for Brain Sciences, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem 9190401, Israel.
HHMI Janelia Research Campus, Ashburn, VA 20147, USA.
Neuron. 2022 Oct 5;110(19):3064-3075. doi: 10.1016/j.neuron.2022.06.019. Epub 2022 Jul 20.
Sensory areas are spontaneously active in the absence of sensory stimuli. This spontaneous activity has long been studied; however, its functional role remains largely unknown. Recent advances in technology, allowing large-scale neural recordings in the awake and behaving animal, have transformed our understanding of spontaneous activity. Studies using these recordings have discovered high-dimensional spontaneous activity patterns, correlation between spontaneous activity and behavior, and dissimilarity between spontaneous and sensory-driven activity patterns. These findings are supported by evidence from developing animals, where a transition toward these characteristics is observed as the circuit matures, as well as by evidence from mature animals across species. These newly revealed characteristics call for the formulation of a new role for spontaneous activity in neural sensory computation.
感觉区域在没有感觉刺激的情况下会自发活动。这种自发活动长期以来一直被研究；然而，其功能作用在很大程度上仍然未知。技术上的最新进展使得在清醒且行为活动的动物身上进行大规模神经记录成为可能，这改变了我们对自发活动的理解。使用这些记录的研究发现了高维自发活动模式、自发活动与行为之间的相关性，以及自发活动模式与感觉驱动活动模式之间的差异。这些发现得到了来自发育中动物的证据支持，在发育中动物中，随着神经回路成熟会观察到向这些特征的转变，同时也得到了来自跨物种成熟动物的证据支持。这些新揭示的特征要求为自发活动在神经感觉计算中制定一个新的作用。
