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Synchrony, connectivity, and functional similarity in auditory midbrain local circuits
Craig A Atencio1, Victor Shen1, Christoph E Schreiner1
1Coleman Memorial Laboratory, Department of Otolaryngology-HNS, UCSF Center for Integrative Neuroscience, Kavli Institute for Fundamental Neuroscience, University of California, San Francisco, 675 Nelson Rising Lane, San Francisco, CA 94158, United States.
Neuroscience
|August 22, 2016
Summary
Local circuits in the inferior colliculus (ICC) show weak functional connectivity between neighboring neurons. This variability in receptive fields suggests diverse inputs, unlike the primary auditory cortex (AI).
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Auditory Neuroscience
- Computational Neuroscience
Background:
- The central nucleus of the inferior colliculus (ICC) exhibits a laminar structure crucial for processing auditory information.
- While topographic organization is known, the functional micro-organization and local circuit properties of the ICC remain less understood.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the functional connectivity and receptive field properties of neighboring neurons within the ICC.
- To understand the structure and function of local circuits in the ICC and compare them to the primary auditory cortex (AI).
Main Methods:
- Recording from pairs of adjacent ICC neurons while presenting pure-tone and dynamic broad-band auditory stimuli.
- Estimating functional connectivity, frequency response areas (FRAs), spectrotemporal receptive fields (STRFs), and nonlinear input/output functions.
- Analyzing cross-covariance functions to identify excitatory and inhibitory interactions.
Main Results:
- Identified both unidirectional and bidirectional excitatory/inhibitory interactions between neighboring ICC neurons.
- Neighboring neurons showed strong conservation of best frequency but moderate agreement in STRF similarity, bandwidth, and temporal response properties.
- Excitatory connections were stronger and more temporally precise than inhibitory connections.
- Functional similarity between local ICC neuron pairs was significantly lower than in the primary auditory cortex (AI).
Conclusions:
- Local neurons in the ICC are comparatively weakly connected, with considerable receptive field variability.
- This variability likely reflects the heterogeneity of converging inputs onto specific ICC functional zones.
- The ICC serves as a critical hub for ascending auditory information, but its local processing is characterized by less functional similarity than in the AI.
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