Neuronal avalanches are diverse and precise activity patterns that are stable for many hours in cortical slice cultures
Neuronal avalanches are diverse and precise activity patterns that are stable for many hours in cortical slice cultures
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DOI：
10.1523/jneurosci.0540-04.2004
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发表时间：
2004-06-02
影响因子：
5.3
通讯作者：
Plenz, D
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Beggs, JM;Plenz, D
神经科学的一个主要目标是阐明大脑皮质信息处理和存储的机制。我们实验室以前的工作(Begins和Plenz，2003)表明，局域场势(LFP)在大脑皮层环路中的传播可以用与雪崩相同的方程来描述。虽然建模研究表明，这些“神经元雪崩”是信息传输的最佳选择，但尚不清楚它们在信息存储中能起到什么作用。许多其他实验室的研究表明，大脑皮层结构可以产生可复制的时空活动模式，可以用作记忆的底物。在这里，我们表明，尽管神经元雪崩只持续了几毫秒，但它们的时空模式也是稳定的，即使在许多小时后也是显著可重复的。为了研究这些问题，我们在60通道微电极阵列上培养了4周的大鼠大脑皮质冠状切片，并连续记录了10小时的自发细胞外LFP。使用基于相关性的聚类和全局对比函数，我们发现每种大脑皮层培养自发地产生每小时4736+/-2769(平均+/-SD)神经元雪崩，聚集成30+/-14个具有统计学意义的时空模式家族。在10小时的记录中，这些雪崩模式共享的互信息超过98%被保留。此外，抖动分析表明，雪崩之间的相关性在时间上精确到+/-4毫秒以内。这些雪崩的长期稳定性、多样性和时间精确度表明，它们满足了许多对记忆底物的预期要求，并表明它们在大脑皮层网络中的信息传输和存储中发挥着核心作用。
A major goal of neuroscience is to elucidate mechanisms of cortical information processing and storage. Previous work from our laboratory (Beggs and Plenz, 2003) revealed that propagation of local field potentials (LFPs) in cortical circuits could be described by the same equations that govern avalanches. Whereas modeling studies suggested that these "neuronal avalanches" were optimal for information transmission, it was not clear what role they could play in information storage. Work from numerous other laboratories has shown that cortical structures can generate reproducible spatiotemporal patterns of activity that could be used as a substrate for memory. Here, we show that although neuronal avalanches lasted only a few milliseconds, their spatiotemporal patterns were also stable and significantly repeatable even many hours later. To investigate these issues, we cultured coronal slices of rat cortex for 4 weeks on 60-channel microelectrode arrays and recorded spontaneous extracellular LFPs continuously for 10 hr. Using correlation-based clustering and a global contrast function, we found that each cortical culture spontaneously produced 4736 +/- 2769 (mean +/- SD) neuronal avalanches per hour that clustered into 30 +/- 14 statistically significant families of spatiotemporal patterns. In 10 hr of recording, over 98% of the mutual information shared by these avalanche patterns were retained. Additionally, jittering analysis revealed that the correlations between avalanches were temporally precise to within +/-4 msec. The long-term stability, diversity, and temporal precision of these avalanches indicate that they fulfill many of the requirements expected of a substrate for memory and suggest that they play a central role in both information transmission and storage within cortical networks.