Publications using the RZ2

The cerebral cortex is spontaneously active during sleep, yet it is unclear how this global cortical activity is spatiotemporally organized, and whether such activity not only reflects sleep states but also contributes to sleep state switching. Here we report that cortex-wide calcium imaging in mice revealed distinct sleep stage-dependent spatiotemporal patterns of global cortical activity, and modulation of such patterns could regulate sleep state switching. In particular, elevated activation in the occipital cortical regions (including the retrosplenial cortex and visual areas) became dominant during rapid-eye-movement (REM) sleep. Furthermore, such pontogeniculooccipital (PGO) wave-like activity was associated with transitions to REM sleep, and optogenetic inhibition of occipital activity strongly promoted deep sleep by suppressing the NREM-to-REM transition. Thus, whereas subcortical networks are critical for initiating and maintaining sleep and wakefulness states, distinct global cortical activity also plays an active role in controlling sleep states.

The frontopolar cortex (FPC) of primates appeared as a main innovation in the evolution of anthropoid primates and it has been placed at the top of the prefrontal hierarchy. The only study to date that investigated the activity of FPC neurons in monkeys performing a cognitive task suggested that these cells were involved in the monitoring of self-generated actions. We recorded the activity of neurons in the FPCs of two rhesus monkeys while they performed a social variant of a nonmatch-to-goal task that required monitoring the actions of a human or computer agent. We discovered that the role of FPC neurons extends beyond self-generated actions to include monitoring others' actions. Their monitoring activity was very specific. First, neurons in the FPC encoded the spatial position of the target but not its object features. Second, a dedicated representation of the human agent actions was tied to the time of target acquisition, while it was reduced or absent in the successive epochs of the trial. Finally, this other-specific neural substrate did not emerge during the interaction with a virtual agent such as the computer. These results provide a new perspective on the functions of a uniquely primate brain area, suggesting that FPC might play an important role in social behaviors.

Hippocampal theta and gamma rhythms are hypothesized to play a role in the physiology of higher cognition. Prior research has reported that an offset in theta cycles between the entorhinal cortex, CA3, and CA1 regions promotes independence of population activity across the hippocampus. In line with this idea, it has recently been observed that CA1 pyramidal cells can establish and maintain coordinated place cell activity intrinsically, with minimal reliance on afferent input. Counter to these observations is the contemporary hypothesis that CA1 neuron activity is driven by a gamma oscillation arising from the medial entorhinal cortex (MEC) that relays information by providing precisely timed synchrony between MEC and CA1. Reinvestigating this in rats during appetitive track running, we found that theta is the dominant frequency of cross-frequency coupling between the MEC and hippocampus, with hippocampal gamma largely independent of entorhinal gamma.

Theta oscillations are a hallmark of hippocampal activity across mammals and play a critical role in many hippocampal models of memory and spatial navigation. To reconcile the cross-species differences observed in the presence and properties of theta, we recorded hippocampal local field potentials in rats and ferrets during auditory and visual localisation tasks designed to vary locomotion and sensory attention. Here, we show that theta oscillations occur during locomotion in both ferrets and rats, however during periods of immobility, theta oscillations persist in the ferret, contrasting starkly with the switch to large irregular activity (LIA) in the rat. Theta during immobility in the ferret is identified as analogous to Type 2 theta that has been observed in rodents due to its sensitivity to atropine, and is modulated by behavioural state with the strongest theta observed during reward epochs. These results demonstrate that even under similar behavioural conditions, differences exist between species in the relationship between theta and behavioural state.

Humans and other primates recognize one another in part based on unique structural details of the face, including both local features and their spatial configuration within the head and body. Visual analysis of the face is supported by specialized regions of the primate cerebral cortex, which in macaques are commonly known as face patches. Here we ask whether the responses of neurons in anterior face patches, thought to encode face identity, are more strongly driven by local or holistic facial structure. We created stimuli consisting of recombinant photorealistic images of macaques, where we interchanged the eyes, mouth, head, and body between individuals. Unexpectedly, neurons in the anterior medial (AM) and anterior fundus (AF) face patches were predominantly tuned to local facial features, with minimal neural selectivity for feature combinations. These findings indicate that the high-level structural encoding of face identity rests upon populations of neurons specialized for local features.

The contribution of different brain regions to movement abnormalities in children with dystonia is unknown. Three awake subjects undergoing depth electrode implantation for assessments of potential deep brain recording targets performed a rhythmic figure-8 drawing task. Two subjects had dystonia, one was undergoing testing for treatment of Tourette Syndrome and had neither dystonia nor abnormal movements during testing. Movement-related signals were evaluated by determining the magnitude of task-related frequency components. Brain signals were recorded in globus pallidus internus (GPi), the ventral oralis anterior/posterior (VoaVop) and the ventral intermediate (Vim) nuclei of the thalamus. In comparison to the subject without dystonia, both children with dystonia showed increased task-related activity in GPi and Vim. This finding is consistent with a role of both basal ganglia and cerebellar outputs in the pathogenesis of dystonia. Our results further suggest that frequency analysis of brain recordings during cyclic movements may be a useful tool for analysis of the presence of movement-related signals in various brain regions.

The brain is a highly organized, dynamic system whose network architecture is often assessed through resting functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) functional connectivity. The functional interactions between brain areas, including those observed during rest, are assumed to stem from the collective influence of action potentials carried by long-range neural projections. However, the contribution of individual neurons to brain-wide functional connectivity has not been systematically assessed. Here we developed a method to concurrently measure and compare the spiking activity of local neurons with fMRI signals measured across the brain during rest. We recorded spontaneous activity from neural populations in cortical face patches in the macaque during fMRI scanning sessions. Individual cells exhibited prominent, bilateral coupling with fMRI fluctuations in a restricted set of cortical areas inside and outside the face patch network, partially matching the pattern of known anatomical projections. Within each face patch population, a subset of neurons was positively coupled with the face patch network and another was negatively coupled. The same cells showed inverse correlations with distinct subcortical structures, most notably the lateral geniculate nucleus and brainstem neuromodulatory centers. Corresponding connectivity maps derived from fMRI seeds and local field potentials differed from the single unit maps, particularly in subcortical areas. Together, the results demonstrate that the spiking fluctuations of neurons are selectively coupled with discrete brain regions, with the coupling governed in part by anatomical network connections and in part by indirect neuromodulatory pathways.

Sensory responses typically vary depending on the recent history of sensory experience. This is essential for processes, including adaptation, efficient coding, and change detection. In the auditory cortex (AC), the short-term history dependence of sound-evoked (onset) responses has been well characterized. Yet many AC neurons also respond to sound terminations, and little is known about the history dependence of these "offset" responses, whether the short-term dynamics of onset and offset responses are correlated, or how these properties are distributed among cell types. Here we presented awake male and female mice with repeating noise burst stimuli while recording single-unit activity from primary AC. We identified parvalbumin and somatostatin interneurons through optotagging, and also separated narrow-spiking from broad-spiking units. We found that offset responses are typically less depressive than onset responses, and this result was robust to a variety of stimulus parameters, controls, measurement types, and selection criteria. Whether a cell's onset response facilitates or depresses does not predict whether its offset response facilitates or depresses. Cell types differed in the dynamics of their onset responses, and in the prevalence, but not the dynamics, of their offset responses. Finally, we clustered cells according to spiking responses and found that response clusters were associated with cell type. Each cluster contained cells of several types, but even within a cluster, cells often showed cell type-specific response dynamics. We conclude that onset and offset responses are differentially influenced by recent sound history, and discuss the implications of this for the encoding of ongoing sound stimuli.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Sensory neuron responses depend on stimulus history. This history dependence is crucial for sensory processing, is precisely controlled at individual synapses and circuits, and is adaptive to the specific requirements of different sensory systems. In the auditory cortex, neurons respond to sound cessation as well as to sound itself, but how history dependence is used along this separate, "offset" information stream is unknown. We show that offset responses are more facilitatory than sound responses, even in neurons where sound responses depress. In contrast to sound onset responses, offset responses are absent in many cells, are relatively homogeneous, and show no cell type-specific differences in history dependence. Offset responses thus show unique response dynamics, suggesting their unique functions.

The primate amygdala is a complex consisting of over a dozen nuclei that have been implicated in a host of cognitive functions, individual differences, and psychiatric illnesses. These functions are implemented through distinct connectivity profiles, which have been documented in animals but remain largely unknown in humans. Here we present results from 25 neurosurgical patients who had concurrent electrical stimulation of the amygdala with intracranial electroencephalography (electrical stimulation tract-tracing; es-TT), or fMRI (electrical stimulation fMRI; es-fMRI), methods providing strong inferences about effective connectivity of amygdala subdivisions with the rest of the brain. We quantified functional connectivity with medial and lateral amygdala, the temporal order of these connections on the timescale of milliseconds, and also detail second-order effective connectivity among the key nodes. These findings provide a uniquely detailed characterization of human amygdala functional connectivity that will inform functional neuroimaging studies in healthy and clinical populations.

Background: Sensory impairments commonly occur in patients with autism or intellectual disability. Fragile X syndrome (FXS) is one form of intellectual disability that is often comorbid with autism. In electroencephalographic (EEG) recordings obtained from humans with FXS, the ability of cortical regions to consistently synchronize, or "phase-lock", to modulated auditory stimuli is reduced compared to that of typically developing individuals. At the same time, less time-locked, "non-phase-locked" power induced by sounds is higher. The same changes occur in the Fmr1 knockout (KO) mouse - an animal model of FXS. We determined if Fmr1 deletion in a subset of brainstem auditory neurons plays any role in these EEG changes in the mouse. Methods: We reinstated FMRP expression in a subpopulation of brainstem auditory neurons in an otherwise Fmr1 KO control (conditional on; cON Fmr1) mouse and used EEG recordings to determine if reinstatement normalized, or "rescued", the phase-locking phenotype observed in the cON Fmr1 mouse. In determining rescue, this also meant that Fmr1 deletion in the same neuron population was necessary for the phenotype to occur. Results: We find that Fmr1 reinstatement in a subset of brainstem neurons rescues certain aspects of the phase-locking phenotype but does not rescue the increase in non-phase-locked power. Unexpectedly, not all electrophysiological phenotypes observed in the Fmr1 KO were observed in the cON Fmr1 mouse used for the reinstatement experiments, and this was likely due to residual expression of FMRP in these Fmr1 KO controls. Conclusions: Fmr1 deletion in brainstem neurons is necessary for certain aspects of the decreased phase-locking phenotype in the Fmr1 KO, but not necessary for the increase in non-phase-locked power induced by a sound. The most likely brainstem structure underlying these results is the inferior colliculus. We also demonstrate that low levels of FMRP can rescue some EEG phenotypes but not others. This latter finding provides a foundation for how symptoms in FXS individuals may vary due to FMRP levels and that reinstatement of low FMRP levels may be sufficient to alleviate particular symptoms.

Neural activity exhibits oscillations, bursts, and resonance, enhancing responsiveness at preferential frequencies. For example, theta-frequency bursting and resonance in granule cells facilitate synaptic transmission and plasticity mechanisms at the input stage of the cerebellar cortex. However, whether theta-frequency bursting of Purkinje cells is involved in generating rhythmic behavior has remained neglected. We recorded and optogenetically modulated the simple and complex spike activity of Purkinje cells while monitoring whisker movements with a high-speed camera of awake, head-fixed mice. During spontaneous whisking, both simple spike activity and whisker movement exhibit peaks within the theta band. Eliciting either simple or complex spikes at frequencies ranging from 0.5 to 28 Hz, we found that 8 Hz is the preferred frequency around which the largest movement is induced. Interestingly, oscillatory whisker movements at 8 Hz were also generated when simple spike bursting was induced at 2 and 4 Hz, but never via climbing fiber stimulation. These results indicate that 8 Hz is the resonant frequency at which the cerebellar-whisker circuitry produces rhythmic whisking.

Fundamental to elucidating the functional organization of the brain is the assessment of causal interactions between different brain regions. Multivariate autoregressive (MVAR) modeling techniques applied to multisite electrophysiological recordings are a promising avenue for identifying such causal links. They estimate the degree to which past activity in one or more brain regions is predictive of another region's present activity, while simultaneously accounting for the mediating effects of other regions. Including as many mediating variables as possible in the model has the benefit of drastically reducing the odds of detecting spurious causal connectivity. However, effective bounds on the number of MVAR model coefficients that can be estimated reliably from limited data make exploiting the potential of MVAR models challenging for even modest numbers of recording sites. Here, we utilize well-established dimensionality-reduction techniques to fit MVAR models to human intracranial data from ∼100 - 200 recording sites spanning dozens of anatomically and functionally distinct cortical regions. First, we show that high-dimensional MVAR models can be successfully estimated from long segments of data and yield plausible connectivity profiles. Next, we use these models to generate synthetic data with known ground-truth connectivity to explore the utility of applying principal component analysis and group least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (gLASSO) to reduce the number of parameters (connections) during model fitting to shorter data segments. We show that gLASSO is highly effective for recovering ground-truth connectivity in the limited data regime, capturing important features of connectivity for high-dimensional models with as little as 10 seconds of data. The methods presented here have broad applicability to the analysis of high-dimensional time series data in neuroscience, facilitating the elucidation of the neural basis of sensation, cognition, and arousal.

Chronic Levodopa therapy, the gold-standard treatment for Parkinson’s Disease (PD), leads to the emergence of involuntary movements, called levodopa-induced dyskinesia (LID). Cerebellar stimulation has been shown to decrease LID severity in PD patients. Here, in order to determine how cerebellar stimulation induces LID alleviation, we performed daily short trains of optogenetic stimulations of Purkinje cells (PC) in freely moving LID mice. We demonstrated that these stimulations are sufficient to suppress LID or even prevent their development. This symptomatic relief is accompanied by the normalization of aberrant neuronal discharge in the cerebellar nuclei, the motor cortex and the parafascicular thalamus. Inhibition of the cerebello-parafascicular pathway counteracted the beneficial effects of cerebellar stimulation. Moreover, cerebellar stimulation reversed plasticity in D1 striatal neurons and normalized the overexpression of FosB, a transcription factor causally linked to LID. These findings demonstrate LID alleviation and prevention by daily PC stimulations, which restore the function of a wide motor network, and may be valuable for LID treatment.

Elevated neural plasticity during development contributes to dramatic improvements in perceptual, motor, and cognitive skills. However, malleable neural circuits are vulnerable to environmental influences that may disrupt behavioral maturation. While these risks are well-established prior to sexual maturity (i.e., critical periods), the degree of neural vulnerability during adolescence remains uncertain. Here, we induce transient hearing loss (HL) spanning adolescence in gerbils, and ask whether behavioral and neural maturation are disrupted. We find that adolescent HL causes a significant perceptual deficit that can be attributed to degraded auditory cortex processing, as assessed with wireless single neuron recordings and within-session population-level analyses. Finally, auditory cortex brain slices from adolescent HL animals reveal synaptic deficits that are distinct from those typically observed after critical period deprivation. Taken together, these results show that diminished adolescent sensory experience can cause long-lasting behavioral deficits that originate, in part, from a dysfunctional cortical circuit.

Animals can capitalize on invariance in the environment by learning and automating highly consistent actions; however, they must also remain flexible and adapt to environmental changes. It remains unclear how primary motor cortex (M1) can drive precise movements, yet also support behavioral exploration when faced with consistent errors. Using a reach-to-grasp task in rats, along with simultaneous electrophysiological monitoring in M1 and dorsolateral striatum (DLS), we find that behavioral exploration to overcome consistent task errors is closely associated with tandem increases in M1 and DLS neural variability; subsequently, consistent ensemble patterning returns with convergence to a new successful strategy. We also show that compared to reliably patterned intracranial microstimulation in M1, variable stimulation patterns result in significantly greater movement variability. Our results thus indicate that motor and striatal areas can flexibly transition between two modes, reliable neural pattern generation for automatic and precise movements versus variable neural patterning for behavioral exploration.

Targeted therapies for epilepsies associated with the mTORC1 signaling negative regulator GATOR1 are lacking. NPRL2 is a subunit of the GATOR1 complex and mutations in GATOR1 subunits, including NPRL2, are associated with epilepsy. To delineate the mechanisms underlying NPRL2-related epilepsies, we created a mouse (Mus musculus) model with neocortical loss of Nprl2. Mutant mice have increased mTORC1 signaling and exhibit spontaneous seizures. They also display abnormal synaptic function characterized by increased evoked and spontaneous EPSC and decreased evoked and spontaneous IPSC frequencies, respectively. Proteomic and metabolomics studies of Nprl2 mutants revealed alterations in known epilepsy-implicated proteins and metabolic pathways, including increases in the neurotransmitter, glycine. Furthermore, glycine actions on the NMDA receptor contribute to the electrophysiological and survival phenotypes of these mice. Taken together, in this neuronal Nprl2 model, we delineate underlying molecular, metabolic, and electrophysiological mechanisms contributing to mTORC1-related epilepsy, providing potential therapeutic targets for epilepsy.

Animals are constantly bombarded with stimuli, which presents a fundamental problem of sorting among pervasive uninformative stimuli and novel, possibly meaningful stimuli. We evaluated novelty detection behaviorally in honey bees as they position their antennae differentially in an air stream carrying familiar or novel odors. We then characterized neuronal responses to familiar and novel odors in the first synaptic integration center in the brain–the antennal lobes. We found that the neurons that exhibited stronger initial responses to the odor that was to be familiarized are the same units that later distinguish familiar and novel odors, independently of chemical identities. These units, including both tentative projection neurons and local neurons, showed a decreased response to the familiar odor but an increased response to the novel odor. Our results suggest that the antennal lobe may represent familiarity or novelty to an odor stimulus in addition to its chemical identity code. Therefore, the mechanisms for novelty detection may be present in early sensory processing, either as a result of local synaptic interaction or via feedback from higher brain centers.

Spinal interneurons play a critical role in motor output. A given interneuron may receive convergent input from several different sensory modalities and descending centers and relay this information to just as many targets. Therefore, there is a critical need to quantify populations of spinal interneurons simultaneously. Here, we quantify the functional connectivity of spinal neurons through the concurrent recording of populations of lumbar interneurons and hindlimb motor units in the in vivo cat model during activation of either the ipsilateral sural nerve or contralateral tibial nerve. Two microelectrode arrays were placed into lamina VII, one at L3 and a second at L6/7, while an electrode array was placed on the surface of the exposed muscle. Stimulation of tibial and sural nerves elicited similar changes in the discharge rate of both interneurons and motor units. However, these same neurons showed highly significant differences in prevalence and magnitude of correlated activity underlying these two forms of afferent drive. Activation of the ipsilateral sural nerve resulted in highly correlated activity, particularly at the caudal array. In contrast, the contralateral tibial nerve resulted in less, but more widespread correlated activity at both arrays. These data suggest that the ipsilateral sural nerve has dense projections onto caudal lumbar spinal neurons, while contralateral tibial nerve has a sparse pattern of projections.

Over the last 15 years, optogenetics has changed fundamental research in neuroscience and is now reaching toward therapeutic applications. Vision restoration strategies using optogenetics are now at the forefront of these new clinical opportunities. But applications to human patients suffering from retinal diseases leading to blindness raise important concerns on the long-term functional expression of optogenes and the efficient signal transmission to higher visual centers. Here, we demonstrate in non-human primates continued expression and functionality at the retina level ∼20 months after delivery of our construct. We also performed in vivo recordings of visually evoked potentials in the primary visual cortex of anesthetized animals. Using synaptic blockers, we isolated the in vivo cortical activation resulting from the direct optogenetic stimulation of primate retina. In conclusion, our work indicates long-term transgene expression and transmission of the signal generated in the macaque retina to the visual cortex, two important features for future clinical applications.

Background To localize sound sources accurately in a reverberant environment, human binaural hearing strongly favors analyzing the initial wave front of sounds. Behavioral studies of this “precedence effect” have so far largely been confined to human subjects, limiting the scope of complementary physiological approaches. Similarly, physiological studies have mostly looked at neural responses in the inferior colliculus, the main relay point between the inner ear and the auditory cortex, or used modeling of cochlear auditory transduction in an attempt to identify likely underlying mechanisms. Studies capable of providing a direct comparison of neural coding and behavioral measures of sound localization under the precedence effect are lacking. Results We adapted a “temporal weighting function” paradigm previously developed to quantify the precedence effect in human for use in laboratory rats. The animals learned to lateralize click trains in which each click in the train had a different interaural time difference. Computing the “perceptual weight” of each click in the train revealed a strong onset bias, very similar to that reported for humans. Follow-on electrocorticographic recording experiments revealed that onset weighting of interaural time differences is a robust feature of the cortical population response, but interestingly, it often fails to manifest at individual cortical recording sites. Conclusion While previous studies suggested that the precedence effect may be caused by early processing mechanisms in the cochlea or inhibitory circuitry in the brainstem and midbrain, our results indicate that the precedence effect is not fully developed at the level of individual recording sites in the auditory cortex, but robust and consistent precedence effects are observable only in the auditory cortex at the level of cortical population responses. This indicates that the precedence effect emerges at later cortical processing stages and is a significantly “higher order” feature than has hitherto been assumed.