Three Channels of Corticothalamic Communication during Locomotion

Sirota, Mikhail G.; Swadlow, Harvey A.; Beloozerova, Irina N.

doi:10.1523/jneurosci.0489-05.2005

Cited by 61 publications

(91 citation statements)

References 70 publications

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“…An important, yet unresolved, issue relates to the firing of corticothalamic cells during behavior. Corticothalamic cells are notorious for being difficult to drive with sensory stimulation (Swadlow and Weyand, 1987;Swadlow, 1990) and have low firing rates even during certain behaviors (Sirota et al, 2005). Hence, it is important to determine when corticothalamic cells fire at high frequencies.…”

Section: Noradrenergic Activation High-pass Filters Corticothalamic Smentioning

confidence: 99%

Noradrenergic Activation Amplifies Bottom-Up and Top-Down Signal-to-Noise Ratios in Sensory Thalamus

Hirata¹,

Aguilar²,

Castro‐Alamancos³

2006

J. Neurosci.

107

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Thalamocortical cells receive sensory signals via primary sensory afferents and cortical signals via corticothalamic afferents. These signals are influenced by a variety of neuromodulators that are released in the thalamus during specific behavioral states. Hence, different neuromodulators may set different thalamic modes of sensory information processing. We found that noradrenergic activation affects sensory and corticothalamic signals in the whisker thalamus differently than cholinergic activation. Whereas cholinergic activation increases the spontaneous firing (noise) and enlarges the receptive fields of ventroposterior medial thalamus (VPM) cells, noradrenergic activation decreases spontaneous firing and focuses receptive fields. Consequently, for sensory signals, noradrenergic activation sets bottom-up thalamic processing to a focused and noise-free excitatory receptive field, which contrasts with the broad and noisy excitatory receptive field characteristic of cholinergic activation. For corticothalamic signals, noradrenergic activation sets top-down processing to a noise-free high-frequency signal detection mode, whereas cholinergic activation produces a noisy broadband signal detection mode. The effects of noradrenergic activation on signal-to-noise ratios of VPM cells were found to be mediated by nucleus reticularis thalamic (nRt) cells. Hence, a major role of nRt cells is to regulate the noise level of thalamocortical cells during sensory processing. In conclusion, different modulators establish distinct modes of bottom-up and top-down information processing in the sensory thalamus.

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Section: Noradrenergic Activation High-pass Filters Corticothalamic Smentioning

confidence: 99%

Noradrenergic Activation Amplifies Bottom-Up and Top-Down Signal-to-Noise Ratios in Sensory Thalamus

Hirata¹,

Aguilar²,

Castro‐Alamancos³

2006

J. Neurosci.

107

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“…Second, one can argue that even intuitively "infrequent" events do have a physiological effect. Indeed, the frequency of H3-patterns in relation to a behavior is in the range of the rare single spike activity of many neuronal subpopulations, including numerous cortico-cortical, cortico-thalamic, and cortico-striatal projecting populations in mammals [8,9,10,56,60,66,67,68,71], as well as a group of neurons that connect two song-production nuclei in song birds [30]. Although in most of these cases the functional role of such sparse firing is yet to be determined, it seems to be computationally efficient in visual processing [73] and in songs learning in songbirds [24].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The database for this study was a subset from the databases used for our previously published studies [6,7,8,9,49,50,60]. The selection of the neurons and neuronal populations for this study was based on the duration of available spike trains (4000-65000 spikes).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The relation of spike activity of these neuronal populations to locomotion and respiration we have described in a series of separate reports: [6] -cat ventrolateral thalamus; [7] -cat parietal cortex; [9,60] -cat motor cortex; [8] -rabbit motor cortex; [49,50] -cat respiratory medulla. The database for this study was a subset from the databases used for the above published studies.…”

Section: Behavior-related Activity Of the Neuronsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Precise rhythmicity in activity of neocortical, thalamic and brain stem neurons in behaving cats and rabbits

Dunin-Barkowski

Sirota

Lovering

et al. 2006

Behavioural Brain Research

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Rhythmic discharges of neurons are believed to be involved in information processing in both sensory and motor systems. However their fine structure and functional role need further elucidation. We employed a pattern-based approach to search for episodes of precisely rhythmic activity of single neurons recorded in different brain structures in behaving cats and rabbits. We defined discharge patterns using an algorithmic description, which is different from the previously suggested template methods. We detected episodes of precisely rhythmic discharges, specifically, triads of constant (precision ± 2.5%) inter-spike intervals in the 10-70 ms range. In 54% (67/125) of neurons tested, these patterns could not be explained by random occurrences or by steady or slowly changing input. Rhythmic patterns occurred at a wide range of inter-spike intervals, and were imbedded in nonrhythmic activity. In many neurons, timing of these precisely rhythmic patterns was related to different locomotion tasks or to respiration.

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“…In addition, the "depth" of modulation was calculated as dM ϭ (N max Ϫ N min )/N ϫ 100%, where N max and N min are the number of spikes in the maximal and the minimal phase histogram bin, and N is the total number of spikes in the phase histogram. The two measures for the modulation of neuronal activity, M and dM, were needed to enable comparisons with the motor cortex activity during postural corrections, previously characterized by M , and during locomotion, previously characterized by dM (Beloozerova and Sirota 1993a; Sirota et al 2005).…”

Section: Neuronal Data Processingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Activity of the Motor Cortex During Scratching

Sirota

Павлова²,

Beloozerova³

2006

Journal of Neurophysiology

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. In awake cats sitting with the head restrained, scratching was evoked using stimulation of the ear. Cats scratched the shoulder area, consistently failing to reach the ear. Kinematics of the hind limb movements and the activity of ankle muscles, however, were similar to those reported earlier in unrestrained cats. The activity of single neurons in the hind limb representation of the motor cortex, including pyramidal tract neurons (PTNs), was examined. During the protraction stage of the scratch response, the activity in 35% of the neurons increased and in 50% decreased compared with rest. During the rhythmic stage, the motor cortex population activity was approximately two times higher compared with rest, because the activity of 53% of neurons increased and that of 33% decreased in this stage. The activity of 61% of neurons was modulated in the scratching rhythm. The average depth of frequency modulation was 12.1 Ϯ 5.3%, similar to that reported earlier for locomotion. The phases of activity of different neurons were approximately evenly distributed over the scratch cycle. There was no simple correlation between resting receptive field properties and the activity of neurons during the scratch response. We conclude that the motor cortex participates in both the protraction and the rhythmic stages of the scratch response.

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Three Channels of Corticothalamic Communication during Locomotion

Cited by 61 publications

References 70 publications

Noradrenergic Activation Amplifies Bottom-Up and Top-Down Signal-to-Noise Ratios in Sensory Thalamus

Noradrenergic Activation Amplifies Bottom-Up and Top-Down Signal-to-Noise Ratios in Sensory Thalamus

Precise rhythmicity in activity of neocortical, thalamic and brain stem neurons in behaving cats and rabbits

Activity of the Motor Cortex During Scratching

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