Slow and fast rhythms generated in the cerebral cortex of the anesthetized mouse

A characterization of the oscillatory activity in the cerebral cortex of the mouse was realized under ketamine anesthesia. Bilateral recordings were obtained from deep layers of primary visual, somatosensory, motor, and medial prefrontal cortex. A slow oscillatory activity consisting of up and down states was detected, the average frequency being 0.97 Hz in all areas. Different parameters of the oscillation were estimated across cortical areas, including duration of up and down states and their variability, speed of state transitions, and population firing rate. Similar values were obtained for all areas except for prefrontal cortex, which showed significant faster down-to-up state transitions, higher firing rate during up states, and more regular cycles. The wave propagation patterns in the anteroposterior axis in motor cortex and the mediolateral axis in visual cortex were studied with multielectrode recordings, yielding speed values between 8 and 93 mm/s. The firing of single units was analyzed with respect to the population activity. The most common pattern was that of neurons firing in >90% of the up states with 1-6 spikes. Finally, fast rhythms (beta, low gamma, and high gamma) were analyzed, all of them showing significantly larger power during up states than in down states. Prefrontal cortex exhibited significantly larger power in both beta and gamma bands (up to 1 order of magnitude larger in the case of high gamma) than the rest of the cortical areas. This study allows us to carry out interareal comparisons and provides a baseline to compare against cortical emerging activity from genetically altered animals.