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Acute In Vivo Electrophysiological Recordings of Local Field Potentials and Multi-unit Activity from the Hyperdirect Pathway in Anesthetized Rats
Published on: June 22, 2017
Striatal gating through up states and oscillations in the basal ganglia: Implications for Parkinson's disease
Camila L Zold1, Fernando Kasanetz, Pablo E Pomata
1Neural Circuit Physiology Lab., Systems Neuroscience Group, Department of Physiology and Biophysics, University of Buenos Aires School of Medicine, 2155 Paraguay St., Buenos Aires 1121, Argentina. czold@jhmi.edu
Abstract:
Up states are a hallmark of striatal physiology. Spontaneous activity in the thalamo-cortical network drives robust plateau depolarizations in the medium spiny projection neurons of the striatum. Medium spiny neuron firing is only possible during up states and is very tightly regulated by dopamine and NMDA receptors. In a rat model of Parkinson's disease the medium spiny neurons projecting to the globus pallidus (indirect pathway) show more depolarized up states and increased firing. This is translated into abnormal patterns of synchronization between the globus pallidus and frontal cortex, which are believed to underlie the symptoms of Parkinson's disease. Here we review our work in the field and propose a mechanism through which the lack of D2 receptor stimulation in the striatum allows the establishment of fixed routes of information flow in the cortico-striato-pallidal network.
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