Short-term synaptic dynamics control the activity phase of neurons in an oscillatory network
Abstract
In oscillatory systems, neuronal activity phase is often independent of network frequency. Such phase maintenance requires adjustment of synaptic input with network frequency, a relationship that we explored using the crab, Cancer borealis, pyloric network. The burst phase of pyloric neurons is relatively constant despite a >2-fold variation in network frequency. We used noise input to characterize how input shape influences burst delay of a pyloric neuron, and then used dynamic clamp to examine how burst phase depends on the period, amplitude, duration, and shape of rhythmic synaptic input. Phase constancy across a range of periods required a proportional increase of synaptic duration with period. However, phase maintenance was also promoted by an increase of amplitude and peak phase of synaptic input with period. Mathematical analysis shows how short-term synaptic plasticity can coordinately change amplitude and peak phase to maximize the range of periods over which phase constancy is achieved.
Data availability
Source data files have been provided for Figures 2 and 7.
Article and author information
Author details
Funding
National Institutes of Health (MH060605)
- Dirk M Bucher
- Farzan Nadim
National Science Foundation (DMS1122291)
- Amitabha Bose
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
Reviewing Editor
- Ronald L Calabrese, Emory University, United States
Publication history
- Received: March 15, 2019
- Accepted: June 8, 2019
- Accepted Manuscript published: June 10, 2019 (version 1)
- Version of Record published: June 24, 2019 (version 2)
Copyright
© 2019, Martinez et al.
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.
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Further reading
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- Neuroscience
Response variability is an essential and universal feature of sensory processing and behavior. It arises from fluctuations in the internal state of the brain, which modulate how sensory information is represented and transformed to guide behavioral actions. In part, brain state is shaped by recent network activity, fed back through recurrent connections to modulate neuronal excitability. However, the degree to which these interactions influence response variability and the spatial and temporal scales across which they operate, are poorly understood. Here, we combined population recordings and modeling to gain insights into how neuronal activity modulates network state and thereby impacts visually evoked activity and behavior. First, we performed cellular-resolution calcium imaging of the optic tectum to monitor ongoing activity, the pattern of which is both a cause and consequence of changes in network state. We developed a minimal network model incorporating fast, short range, recurrent excitation and long-lasting, activity-dependent suppression that reproduced a hallmark property of tectal activity – intermittent bursting. We next used the model to estimate the excitability state of tectal neurons based on recent activity history and found that this explained a portion of the trial-to-trial variability in visually evoked responses, as well as spatially selective response adaptation. Moreover, these dynamics also predicted behavioral trends such as selective habituation of visually evoked prey-catching. Overall, we demonstrate that a simple recurrent interaction motif can be used to estimate the effect of activity upon the incidental state of a neural network and account for experience-dependent effects on sensory encoding and visually guided behavior.
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- Developmental Biology
- Neuroscience
The formation of neural circuits requires extensive interactions of cell-surface proteins to guide axons to their correct target neurons. Trans-cellular interactions of the adhesion G protein-coupled receptor latrophilin-2 (Lphn2) with its partner teneurin-3 instruct the precise assembly of hippocampal networks by reciprocal repulsion. Lphn2 acts as a repulsive receptor in distal CA1 neurons to direct their axons to proximal subiculum, and as a repulsive ligand in proximal subiculum to direct proximal CA1 axons to distal subiculum. It remains unclear if Lphn2-mediated intracellular signaling is required for its role in either context. Here, we show that Lphn2 couples to Gα12/13 in heterologous cells; this coupling is increased by constitutive exposure of the tethered agonist. Specific mutations of Lphn2's tethered agonist region disrupt its G protein coupling and autoproteolytic cleavage, whereas mutating the autoproteolytic cleavage site alone prevents cleavage but preserves a functional tethered agonist. Using an in vivo misexpression assay, we demonstrate that wild-type Lphn2 misdirects proximal CA1 axons to proximal subiculum and that Lphn2 tethered agonist activity is required for its role as a repulsive receptor in axons. By contrast, neither tethered agonist activity nor autoproteolysis was necessary for Lphn2's role as a repulsive ligand in the subiculum target neurons. Thus, tethered agonist activity is required for Lphn2-mediated neural circuit assembly in a context-dependent manner.