Patterned perturbation of inhibition can reveal the dynamical structure of neural processing

Abstract
Data availability
Article and author information
Metrics

Abstract

Perturbation of neuronal activity is key to understanding the brain's functional properties, however, intervention studies typically perturb neurons in a nonspecific manner. Recent optogenetics techniques have enabled patterned perturbations, in which specific patterns of activity can be invoked in identified target neurons to reveal more specific cortical function. Here, we argue that patterned perturbation of neurons is in fact necessary to reveal the specific dynamics of inhibitory stabilization, emerging in cortical networks with strong excitatory and inhibitory functional subnetworks, as recently reported in mouse visual cortex. We propose a specific perturbative signature of these networks and investigate how this can be measured under different experimental conditions. Functionally, rapid spontaneous transitions between selective ensembles of neurons emerge in such networks, consistent with experimental results. Our study outlines the dynamical and functional properties of feature-specific inhibitory-stabilized networks, and suggests experimental protocols that can be used to detect them in the intact cortex.

Data availability

All data generated or analysed during this study are included in the manuscript and supporting files.

Article and author information

Author details

Sadra Sadeh

Bioengineering, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom

For correspondence
s.sadeh@imperial.ac.uk

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

"This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0001-8159-5461
Claudia Clopath

Department of Bioengineering, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

"This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0003-4507-8648

Funding

Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BB/N013956/1)

Claudia Clopath

Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BB/N019008/1)

Claudia Clopath

Wellcome (200790/Z/16/Z)

Claudia Clopath

Simons Foundation (564408)

Claudia Clopath

Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EP/R035806/1)

Claudia Clopath

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

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.