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Inducing Long-Term Plasticity of Intrinsic Neuronal Excitability in Neurons of the Dorsal Lateral Geniculate Nucleus
Published on: September 20, 2024
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Relation between gamma oscillations and neuronal plasticity in the visual cortex
Ralf A W Galuske1,2, Matthias H J Munk2,3, Wolf Singer1,4,5
1Department of Neurophysiology, Max Planck Institute for Brain Research, 60528 Frankfurt am Main Germany; galuske@bio.tu-darmstadt.de wolf.singer@brain.mpg.de.
Summary
Synchronized gamma oscillations gate long-term neuronal plasticity in the visual cortex. Strong gamma oscillations enhance orientation selectivity, while weak oscillations decrease it, demonstrating network dynamics control neural modifications.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Computational Neuroscience
- Systems Neuroscience
Background:
- Use-dependent plasticity allows neurons to modify their response properties.
- Gating mechanisms are crucial to prevent irrelevant neural activity from inducing inappropriate modifications.
- Local network dynamics, particularly synchronized oscillations, may play a role in gating synaptic plasticity.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the role of synchronized gamma (ɣ) oscillations in gating use-dependent, long-term changes in neuronal response properties.
- To test the hypothesis that local network dynamics, specifically gamma oscillations, contribute to gating synaptic modifications in the visual cortex.
- To examine how gamma oscillations influence the modification of orientation selectivity in the adult cat visual cortex.
Main Methods:
- Examined the effect of synchronized gamma (ɣ) oscillations on stimulation-dependent modifications of orientation selectivity.
- Induced changes in orientation maps by pairing visual stimulation with electrical activation of the mesencephalic reticular formation.
- Assessed changes in orientation selectivity using optical recording of intrinsic signals and multiunit recordings.
Main Results:
- Strong gamma oscillations during conditioning led to expansion of orientation domains matching the stimulus, with neurons shifting preference towards the conditioned orientation.
- Weak or absent gamma oscillations resulted in decreased responsiveness of neurons to the conditioning stimulus.
- The observed effects were dependent on the power of low gamma-band oscillations (20-48 Hz) and not on neuronal discharge rates.
Conclusions:
- The occurrence and polarity of use-dependent long-term changes in cortical response properties are dependent on the presence of gamma oscillations during induction.
- Gamma oscillations, by influencing temporal coherence of network activity, appear to act as a gating mechanism for synaptic plasticity.
- These findings highlight the critical role of network-level oscillatory dynamics in regulating experience-dependent cortical plasticity.
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