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Neuronal Avalanches Across the Rat Somatosensory Barrel Cortex and the Effect of Single Whisker Stimulation.

Authors :
Mariani, Benedetta
Nicoletti, Giorgio
Bisio, Marta
Maschietto, Marta
Oboe, Roberto
Leparulo, Alessandro
Suweis, Samir
Vassanelli, Stefano
Source :
Frontiers in Systems Neuroscience; 8/30/2021, Vol. 15, p1-13, 13p
Publication Year :
2021

Abstract

Since its first experimental signatures, the so called "critical brain hypothesis" has been extensively studied. Yet, its actual foundations remain elusive. According to a widely accepted teleological reasoning, the brain would be poised to a critical state to optimize the mapping of the noisy and ever changing real-world inputs, thus suggesting that primary sensory cortical areas should be critical. We investigated whether a single barrel column of the somatosensory cortex of the anesthetized rat displays a critical behavior. Neuronal avalanches were recorded across all cortical layers in terms of both multi-unit activities and population local field potentials, and their behavior during spontaneous activity compared to the one evoked by a controlled single whisker deflection. By applying a maximum likelihood statistical method based on timeseries undersampling to fit the avalanches distributions, we show that neuronal avalanches are power law distributed for both multi-unit activities and local field potentials during spontaneous activity, with exponents that are spread along a scaling line. Instead, after the tactile stimulus, activity switches to a transient across-layers synchronization mode that appears to dominate the cortical representation of the single sensory input. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Details

Language :
English
ISSN :
16625137
Volume :
15
Database :
Complementary Index
Journal :
Frontiers in Systems Neuroscience
Publication Type :
Academic Journal
Accession number :
152188368
Full Text :
https://doi.org/10.3389/fnsys.2021.709677