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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Apr 24, 2026

Stimulus-specific Cortical Visual Evoked Potential Morphological Patterns

Stimulus-specific Cortical Visual Evoked Potential Morphological Patterns

Published on: May 12, 2019

Visual stimuli recruit intrinsically generated cortical ensembles.

Jae-eun Kang Miller¹, Inbal Ayzenshtat², Luis Carrillo-Reid²

¹Department of Biological Sciences, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027 jkm2149@columbia.edu.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America

|September 10, 2014

Summary

Neurons form flexible, coactive ensembles in the brain's visual cortex. These intrinsic neuronal ensembles are activated by both spontaneous brain activity and visual stimuli, suggesting they are fundamental units of cortical processing.

Keywords:

V1 assemblies mouse reverberation

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Area of Science:

Neuroscience
Systems Neuroscience
Computational Neuroscience

Background:

The neocortical microcircuit features recurrent excitatory connections, hypothesized to support intrinsically driven reverberating activity.
Understanding the dynamics of intrinsic neocortical activity is crucial for deciphering brain function.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate the dynamics of neuronal ensembles in the primary visual cortex of awake mice.
To determine how neuronal coactivation contributes to cortical activity during spontaneous and visually stimulated states.

Main Methods:

Two-photon calcium imaging was employed to monitor populations of neurons in the primary visual cortex of awake mice.
Activity was recorded during both spontaneous brain states and periods of visual stimulation.

Main Results:

Cortical activity is characterized by coactive neuronal groups (ensembles) whose activation patterns exceed predictions based on individual neuron firing.
Individual neurons participate in multiple ensembles, increasing the circuit's encoding capacity.
Identical coactive ensembles were observed during both spontaneous activity and in response to visual stimuli, with stimulus-evoked ensembles being time-locked to stimuli.

Conclusions:

Neuronal ensembles, formed by flexible groups of coactive neurons, represent emergent functional units of cortical activity.
Visual stimuli appear to recruit these intrinsically generated ensembles to encode visual attributes.