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Updated: Aug 27, 2025
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Optogenetic Manipulation of Neural Circuits During Monitoring Sleep/wakefulness States in Mice
Published on: June 19, 2019
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Awake perception is associated with dedicated neuronal assemblies in the cerebral cortex.
Anton Filipchuk1,2, Joanna Schwenkgrub3, Alain Destexhe4
1Paris-Saclay University, CNRS, Paris-Saclay Institute of Neuroscience, Saclay, France.
Nature Neuroscience
|September 28, 2022
Summary
Awake brain activity shows distinct neural assemblies for sensory stimuli versus ongoing activity. Anesthesia blurs these distinctions in the cortex but not the thalamus, impacting sensory perception.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Sensory processing
- Neural dynamics
Background:
- Neural activity in the sensory cortex integrates stimulus responses and ongoing activity.
- It is unclear if these reflect shared or separate neural dynamics.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the relationship between stimulus-evoked and ongoing neural activity in the auditory cortex and thalamus.
- To determine how anesthesia affects these neural dynamics.
Main Methods:
- Experiments conducted in mice.
- Analysis of neuronal assemblies in the auditory cortex and thalamus during wakefulness and under anesthesia.
- Comparison of evoked and ongoing neural activity patterns.
Main Results:
- During wakefulness, auditory evoked neuronal assemblies are stimulus-specific and distinct from ongoing activity in both cortex and thalamus.
- Under anesthesia, evoked assemblies become indistinguishable from ongoing activity in the cortex.
- Evoked and ongoing assemblies remain distinct in the thalamus even under anesthesia.
- Anesthesia induces significant remapping of sensory responses.
Conclusions:
- The awake cortex utilizes dedicated neuronal assemblies for sensory input processing.
- These dedicated assemblies are suggested to be a network correlate of sensory perception.
- Anesthesia alters sensory processing dynamics, particularly in the cortex.
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