Sub-second dynamics of theta-gamma coupling in Hippocampal CA1

Abstract
Data availability
Article and author information
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Abstract

Oscillatory brain activity reflects different internal brain states including neurons' excitatory state and synchrony among neurons. However, characterizing these states is complicated by the fact that different oscillations are often coupled, such as gamma oscillations nested in theta in the hippocampus, and changes in coupling are thought to reflect distinct states. Here, we describe a new method to separate single oscillatory cycles into distinct states based on frequency and phase coupling. Using this method, we identified four theta-gamma coupling states in rat hippocampal CA1. These states differed in abundance across behaviors, phase synchrony with other hippocampal subregions, and neural coding properties suggesting that these states are functionally distinct. We captured cycle-to-cycle changes in oscillatory coupling states and found frequent switching between theta-gamma states showing that the hippocampus rapidly shifts between different functional states. This method provides a new approach to investigate oscillatory brain dynamics broadly.

Data availability

All data are available from the CRCNS data repository.

The following previously published data sets were used

(2016) Recordings from hippocampal area CA1, PRE, during and POST novel spatial learning
CRCNS, dx.doi.org/10.6080/K0862DC5.

https://crcns.org/data-sets/hc/hc-11/
(2013) Multiple single unit recordings from different rat hippocampal and entorhinal regions while the animals were performing multiple behavioral tasks
CRCNS, dx.doi.org/10.6080/K09G5JRZ.

https://crcns.org/data-sets/hc/hc-3
(2018) Extracellular recordings from rat hippocampal area CA1 during rest and exploration of a 3-arm maze along with results of real-time and offline detection of hippocampal replay content.
CRCNS, dx.doi:10.6080/K0PN93T4.

https://crcns.org/data-sets/hc/hc-19

Article and author information

Author details

Lu Zhang

Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology and Emory University, Atlanta, United States

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

"This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0001-7300-1037
John Lee

School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, United States

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
Christopher Rozell

Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology and Emory University, Atlanta, United States

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
Annabelle C Singer

Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology and Emory University, Atlanta, United States

For correspondence
asinger@gatech.edu

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

"This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0001-6003-0488

Funding

National Institutes of Health (R01 NS109226)

Annabelle C Singer

Packard Foundation

Annabelle C Singer

National Science Foundation (CCF-1409422)

Christopher Rozell

DSO National Laboratories of Singapore.

John Lee

The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.

Ethics

Animal experimentation: All protocols were approved by the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee of Rutgers University (hc-3) or New York University (hc-11).

Copyright

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.