Local Differences in Network Organization in the Auditory and Parietal Cortex, Revealed with Single Neuron Activation

The structure of local circuits is highly conserved across the cortex, yet the spatial and temporal properties of population activity differ fundamentally in sensory-level and association-level areas. In the sensory cortex, population activity has a shorter timescale and decays sharply over distance, supporting a population code for the fine-scale features of sensory stimuli. In the association cortex, population activity has a longer timescale and spreads over wider distances, a code that is suited to holding information in memory and driving behavior. We tested whether these differences in activity dynamics could be explained by differences in network structure. We targeted photostimulations to single excitatory neurons of layer 2/3, while monitoring surrounding population activity using two-photon calcium imaging. Experiments were performed in the auditory (AC) and posterior parietal cortex (PPC) within the same mice of both sexes, which also expressed a red fluorophore in somatostatin-expressing interneurons (SOM). In both cortical regions, photostimulations resulted in a spatially restricted zone of positive influence on neurons closely neighboring the targeted neuron and a more spatially diffuse zone of negative influence affecting more distant neurons (akin to a network-level "suppressive surround"). However, the relative spatial extents of positive and negative influence were different in AC and PPC. In PPC, the central zone of positive influence was wider, but the negative suppressive surround was more narrow than in AC, which could account for the larger-scale network dynamics in PPC. The more narrow central positive influence zone and wider suppressive surround in AC could serve to sharpen sensory representations.