Neuronal cell-subtype specificity of neural synchronization in mouse primary visual cortex

• Published in: Nature communications Vol. 10; no. 1; p. 2533
• Main Authors: Knoblich, Ulf, Huang, Lawrence, Zeng, Hongkui, Li, Lu
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 10-06-2019; Nature Publishing Group; Nature Portfolio
• Subjects: 14/35; 14/56; 14/69; 631/378/3917; 631/378/3920; 64/60; 9/26; 9/74; Animals; Brain; Calcium; Calcium - metabolism; Calcium imaging; Cognition; Coupling; Electrophysiology; Evoked Potentials, Visual; Female; Heterogeneity; Humanities and Social Sciences; Hypotheses; Interneurons; Interneurons - physiology; Intestine; Male; Mice, Transgenic; Microscopy, Fluorescence, Multiphoton; multidisciplinary; Neuroimaging; Neurons; Neurons - physiology; Orchestras; Parvalbumin; Parvalbumins - metabolism; Photic Stimulation; Population genetics; Science; Science (multidisciplinary); Skewed distributions; Somatostatin; Somatostatin - metabolism; Subpopulations; Synchronism; Synchronization; Typing; Vasoactive agents; Vasoactive intestinal peptide; Vasoactive Intestinal Peptide - metabolism; Visual cortex; Visual Cortex - cytology; Visual Cortex - physiology; Visual pathways
• ISSN: 2041-1723; 2041-1723
• DOI: 10.1038/s41467-019-10498-1

Spatiotemporally synchronised neuronal activity is central to sensation, motion and cognition. Brain circuits consist of dynamically interconnected neuronal cell-types, thus elucidating how neuron types synergise within the network is key to understand the neuronal orchestra. Here we show that in neocortex neuron-network coupling is neuronal cell-subtype specific. Employing in vivo two-photon (2-p) Calcium (Ca) imaging and 2-p targeted whole-cell recordings, we cell-type specifically investigated the coupling profiles of genetically defined neuron populations in superficial layers (L) of mouse primary visual cortex (V1). Our data reveal novel subtlety of neuron-network coupling in inhibitory interneurons (INs). Parvalbumin (PV)- and Vasoactive intestinal peptide (VIP)-expressing INs exhibit skewed distributions towards strong network-coupling; in Somatostatin (SST)-expressing INs, however, two physiological subpopulations are identified with distinct neuron-network coupling profiles, providing direct evidence for subtype specificity. Our results thus add novel functional granularity to neuronal cell-typing, and provided insights critical to simplifying/understanding neural dynamics.
Synchronised neuronal activity is essential for cortical function, yet mechanistic insights into this process remain limited. Here, authors use a combination of in vivo imaging and targeted whole-cell recordings to demonstrate that Somatostatin neurons, in the superficial layers of the mouse primary visual cortex, exhibit functional heterogeneity and can be classified into two distinct subtypes characterized as either having type I uncorrelated, or type II highly correlated with network activity.