Berlin 2015 – scientific programme
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BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik
BP 8: Neurophysics II
BP 8.1: Talk
Monday, March 16, 2015, 14:30–14:45, H 1058
Born to be critical: Spontaneous activity in early cortex and its role in shaping sensory representations — •Bettina Hein1, Klaus Neuschwander1, David E. Whitney2, Gordon B. Smith2, David Fitzpatrick2, and Matthias Kaschube1 — 1Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies, Frankfurt am Main, Germany — 2Max Planck Florida Inst., Jupiter, FL, USA
The cortex is spontaneously active from the first moments that circuits form and there is ample evidence indicating that early cortical maturation relies on spontaneous activity. Yet, we know very little about how the pattern of spontaneous activity prior to visual experience impacts circuit formation. Here we took advantage of the robust columnar representation of orientation preference in ferret visual cortex to determine how patterns of spontaneous activity before eye-opening are related to stimulus evoked patterns in the same animal later in development. By using the calcium indicator GCaMP6 we revealed population activity on a single trial basis in chronic recordings of the developing visual cortex. Novel analysis approaches allowed us to uncover interpretable statistical relations from these data. We found that events of spontaneous activity varied in size over several orders of magnitude. Large events displayed robust columnar patterns that resembled the mature organization of the orientation preference map, several days prior to the time when this map was evoked by visual stimulation. We conclude that early spontaneous activity patterns exhibit a rich dynamics and an orderly columnar structure that forms the basis for building sensory evoked representations during cortical development.