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| Open AccessA transcriptomic axis predicts state modulation of cortical interneurons
Two-photon imaging and in situ transcriptomic analysis of the primary visual cortex in mice show that a single transcriptomic axis correlates with the state modulation of cortical inhibitory neurons.
- Stéphane Bugeon
- , Joshua Duffield
- & Kenneth D. Harris
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Article |
Emergent reliability in sensory cortical coding and inter-area communication
The mouse neocortex supports sensory performance through transient increases in sensory coding redundancy, neural codes that are robust to cellular variability, and inter-area fluctuation modes that transmit sensory data and task responses in non-interfering channels.
- Sadegh Ebrahimi
- , Jérôme Lecoq
- & Mark J. Schnitzer
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Article |
Moving bar of light evokes vectorial spatial selectivity in the immobile rat hippocampus
In response to visual stimuli, hippocampal neurons in a body-fixed rat can respond to and encode visual information without locomotion or task demand, similar to the visual cortex.
- Chinmay S. Purandare
- , Shonali Dhingra
- & Mayank R. Mehta
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Cortical response selectivity derives from strength in numbers of synapses
Live neuron imaging and electron microscopy reconstruction shows that the selectivity of cortical neuron responses to visual stimuli arises from the total number of synapses activated rather than being dominated by a small number of strong synaptic inputs.
- Benjamin Scholl
- , Connon I. Thomas
- & David Fitzpatrick
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Article |
Spatial connectivity matches direction selectivity in visual cortex
In the mouse visual cortex, the excitatory and inhibitory presynaptic neurons of individual layer 2/3 pyramidal neurons are spatially offset to generate direction-selective responses.
- L. Federico Rossi
- , Kenneth D. Harris
- & Matteo Carandini
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Article |
Fundamental bounds on the fidelity of sensory cortical coding
A microscopy system that enables simultaneous recording from hundreds of neurons in the mouse visual cortex reveals that the brain enhances its coding capacity by representing visual inputs in dimensions perpendicular to correlated noise.
- Oleg I. Rumyantsev
- , Jérôme A. Lecoq
- & Mark J. Schnitzer
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Article |
High-dimensional geometry of population responses in visual cortex
Analysis of the encoding of natural images by very large populations of neurons in the visual cortex of awake mice characterizes the high dimensional geometry of the neural responses.
- Carsen Stringer
- , Marius Pachitariu
- & Kenneth D. Harris
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Letter |
Differential tuning of excitation and inhibition shapes direction selectivity in ferret visual cortex
Inhibition to the null direction of motion has a critical role in the direction selectivity of neurons in ferret primary visual cortex.
- Daniel E. Wilson
- , Benjamin Scholl
- & David Fitzpatrick
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Article |
Cortical direction selectivity emerges at convergence of thalamic synapses
Direction selectivity emerges de novo in layer 4 neurons of primary visual cortex through the convergence of synaptic inputs from thalamic neurons that respond with distinct time courses to visual stimuli in distinct locations.
- Anthony D. Lien
- & Massimo Scanziani
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Letter |
Synaptic organization of visual space in primary visual cortex
Mapping the organization of excitatory inputs onto the dendritic spines of individual mouse visual cortex neurons reveals how inputs representing features from the extended visual scene are organized and establishes a computational unit suited to amplify contours and elongated edges.
- M. Florencia Iacaruso
- , Ioana T. Gasler
- & Sonja B. Hofer
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Letter |
Cortico-fugal output from visual cortex promotes plasticity of innate motor behaviour
Projections from the mouse visual cortex to the brainstem accessory optic system promote the adaptive plasticity of the optokinetic reflex, which stabilizes images on the retina when an animal is moving.
- Bao-hua Liu
- , Andrew D. Huberman
- & Massimo Scanziani
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Article |
Principles underlying sensory map topography in primary visual cortex
Recordings from cat visual cortex show that the cortical maps for stimulus orientation, direction and retinal disparity depend on an organization in which thalamic axons with similar retinotopy and light/dark responses are clustered together in the cortex.
- Jens Kremkow
- , Jianzhong Jin
- & Jose M. Alonso
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Letter |
Topology of ON and OFF inputs in visual cortex enables an invariant columnar architecture
Two-photon imaging of calcium signals in the tree shrew visual cortex shows that light-responsive and dark-responsive inputs have distinct arrangements that allow the cortex to map the orientation, visual location and spatial phase of visual stimuli.
- Kuo-Sheng Lee
- , Xiaoying Huang
- & David Fitzpatrick
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Letter |
Anatomy and function of an excitatory network in the visual cortex
Two-photon calcium imaging and electron microscopy were used to explore the relationship between structure and function in mouse primary visual cortex, showing that layer 2/3 neurons are connected in subnetworks, that pyramidal neurons with similar orientation selectivity preferentially form synapses with each other, and that neurons with similar orientation tuning form larger synapses; this study exemplifies functional connectomics as a powerful method for studying the organizational logic of cortical networks.
- Wei-Chung Allen Lee
- , Vincent Bonin
- & R. Clay Reid
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Letter |
Diverse coupling of neurons to populations in sensory cortex
Exploring the relationship between population coupling and neuronal activity reveals that neighbouring neurons can differ in their coupling to the overall firing rate of the population, the circuitry of which may potentially help to explain the complex activity patterns in cortical populations.
- Michael Okun
- , Nicholas A. Steinmetz
- & Kenneth D. Harris
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Letter |
Functional organization of excitatory synaptic strength in primary visual cortex
In complex networks of the cerebral cortex, the majority of connections are weak and only a minority strong, but it is not known why; here the authors show that excitatory neurons in primary visual cortex follow a rule by which strong connections are sparse and occur between neurons with correlated responses to visual stimuli, whereas only weak connections link neurons with uncorrelated responses.
- Lee Cossell
- , Maria Florencia Iacaruso
- & Thomas D. Mrsic-Flogel
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Letter |
Equalizing excitation–inhibition ratios across visual cortical neurons
Different amounts of excitation received by different pyramidal cells of primary visual cortex are matched by proportional amounts of inhibition.
- Mingshan Xue
- , Bassam V. Atallah
- & Massimo Scanziani
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Letter |
A dedicated circuit links direction-selective retinal ganglion cells to the primary visual cortex
Using a combination of viral-tracing and in vivo imaging techniques, the authors show that there are several parallel pathways in the mouse visual system and that directional and orientation selectivity in the cortex may arise from the specialized tuning of retinal circuits.
- Alberto Cruz-Martín
- , Rana N. El-Danaf
- & Andrew D. Huberman
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Letter |
The emergence of functional microcircuits in visual cortex
A study of mouse visual cortex relating patterns of excitatory synaptic connectivity to visual response properties of neighbouring neurons shows that, after eye opening, local connectivity reorganizes extensively: more connections form selectively between neurons with similar visual responses and connections are eliminated between visually unresponsive neurons, but the overall connectivity rate does not change.
- Ho Ko
- , Lee Cossell
- & Thomas D. Mrsic-Flogel
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Letter |
Inhibition dominates sensory responses in the awake cortex
Visual responses during wakefulness are dominated by inhibition, and this inhibition shapes visual selectivity by restricting the temporal and spatial extent of neural activity.
- Bilal Haider
- , Michael Häusser
- & Matteo Carandini
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Research Highlights |
Blind reading with sounds
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Letter |
Functional specificity of local synaptic connections in neocortical networks
- Ho Ko
- , Sonja B. Hofer
- & Thomas D. Mrsic-Flogel
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Article |
Network anatomy and in vivo physiology of visual cortical neurons
To date, various aspects of connectivity have been inferred from electron microscopy (EM) of synaptic contacts, light microscopy of axonal and dendritic arbors, and correlations in activity. However, until now it has not been possible to relate the complex structural wiring between neurons to the function of individual cells. Using a combination of functional imaging and three-dimensional serial EM reconstruction at unprecedented scale, two papers now describe the connectivity of single cells in the mouse visual system. This study investigates the connectivity of inhibitory interneurons in primary visual cortex.
- Davi D. Bock
- , Wei-Chung Allen Lee
- & R. Clay Reid