Cellular mechanisms of brain-state-dependent gain modulation in visual cortex

Visual cortical neurons fire at higher rates to visual stimuli during locomotion than during immobility, while maintaining orientation selectivity. The mechanisms underlying this change in gain are not understood. We performed whole-cell recordings from layer 2/3 and layer 4 visual cortical excitatory neurons and from parvalbumin-positive and somatostatin-positive inhibitory neurons in mice that were free to rest or run on a spherical treadmill. We found that the membrane potential of all cell types became more depolarized and (with the exception of somatostatin-positive interneurons) less variable during locomotion. Cholinergic input was essential for maintaining the unimodal membrane potential distribution during immobility, whereas noradrenergic input was necessary for the tonic depolarization associated with locomotion. Our results provide a mechanism for how neuromodulation controls the gain and signal-to-noise ratio of visual cortical neurons during changes in the state of vigilance.

• Publication year

  2013

• Venue

  Nature Neuroscience

• Publication date

  2013-07-18

• Fields of study

  Biology, Medicine

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.1038/nn.3464PMID 23872595PMCID 3786578
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar, PubMed

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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