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Opposing Somatic and Dendritic Expression of Stimulus-Selective Response Plasticity in Mouse Primary Visual Cortex
Taekeun Kim1, Francesca A Chaloner2,3, Sam F Cooke1,2,3
1Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Picower Institute for Learning and Memory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, United States.
Frontiers in Cellular Neuroscience
|February 4, 2020
Summary
Daily visual stimulus exposure enhances brain responses in mice, but individual neuron activity decreases. This suggests a mechanism where enhanced brain signals recruit inhibition, reducing cellular activity and potentially leading to habituation.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Visual Cortex Plasticity
- Synaptic Potentiation
Background:
- Daily exposure to a phase-reversing visual grating stimulus enhances visual-evoked potentials (VEPs) in the primary visual cortex (V1) of mice.
- This stimulus-selective response potentiation (SRP) shares similarities with long-term synaptic potentiation (LTP) but its effect on individual neuron activity is unclear.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate how SRP-induced population response augmentation alters individual V1 neuron activity.
- To track changes in layer 4 excitatory neurons during SRP induction and expression using longitudinal calcium imaging.
Main Methods:
- Longitudinal calcium imaging of layer 4 excitatory neurons in awake mice.
- Endoscopic calcium imaging to track somatic and neuropil calcium transients.
- Measurement of visual-evoked potentials (VEPs) and neuronal responsiveness to visual stimuli.
Main Results:
- No net change in the proportion of visually responsive neurons was observed as the stimulus became familiar.
- Somatic calcium transients in layer 4 neurons showed reduced responses and strong adaptation to familiar phase-reversing gratings.
- Conversely, neuropil calcium responses and VEPs were enhanced and showed reduced adaptation to familiar stimuli.
Conclusions:
- Enhanced VEPs in V1 layer 4 suggest augmentation of fast, short-latency synaptic responses.
- This augmentation appears to recruit inhibitory mechanisms that suppress cellular activity.
- Reduced cellular activity to familiar stimuli may underlie the behavioral correlate of SRP, known as orientation-selective long-term habituation.
