Barry L Whitsel | PubMed Health

PubMed2002

Sensory cortical dynamics.

Sensory cortical networks are commonly regarded as stable, changing only in the face of prolonged alteration of sensory input. There is increasing evidence, however, that the functional connectivity of cortical networks changes significantly, but reversibly, in response to conditions of sensory stimulation similar to those encountered in everyday life. In this review, we provide examples of sensory cortical dynamics at the single neuron and neural population levels. The dynamics detected at both levels of experimental observation suggest that a brief exposure (tens of milliseconds to tens of seconds) to sensory stimulation is accompanied by changes in the capacity of cortical networks to process and represent environmental stimuli. Candidate cellular mechanisms and the potential benefits of such stimulus-driven, rapid, and fully reversible sensory cortical dynamics are discussed.

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PubMed2002

Optical imaging of intrinsic signals in somatosensory cortex.

The methods of optical intrinsic signal (OIS) imaging and microelectrode mapping of single neuron receptive fields (RFs) were used in combination (in the same squirrel monkey or cat) to characterize the spatial and temporal attributes of the response of contralateral SI cortex to cutaneous flutter stimulation. A change in the location of the stimulated skin site was accompanied by a shift in the locus of the SI optical response. The spatial ordering of the optical responses to independent stimulation of each site in an array of skin sites was consistent with the features of SI topographical organization described in published RF mapping studies. While the single neuron RF mapping observations and the optical response obtained at a given time after onset of flutter stimulation always were positively correlated, the degree of correlation improved progressively with time after stimulus onset (the longest stimulus duration used was 10 s). Analysis of the temporal development of the optical response to cutaneous flutter stimulation revealed that not only does absorbance increase to attain a maximum in the SI region which receives its main input from the stimulated skin site, but at the same time absorbance declines to below-background values in an extensive region of surrounding cortex. The results are interpreted to indicate that the pattern of SI activity evoked by a cutaneous flutter stimulus exhibits increasing spatial contrast (becomes progressively more distinguishable from the activity of surrounding cortex) over periods of continuous stimulation at least as long as 10 s. This time-dependent 'funneling' of the SI spatial activity pattern is proposed to underlie the prominent enhancement of human spatial discriminative capacity which occurs (e.g. Physiol. Behav. 5 (1970) 1431) when oscillatory tactile stimuli are used.

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PubMed2002

Stimulus-evoked modulation of sensorimotor pyramidal neuron EPSPs.

Sensory cortical neurons display substantial receptive field dynamics during and after persistent sensory drive. Because a cell's response properties are determined by the inputs it receives, receptive field dynamics are likely to involve changes in the relative efficacy of different inputs to the cell. To test this hypothesis, we have investigated if brief repetitive stimulus drive in vitro alters the efficacy of two types of corticocortical inputs to layer V pyramidal cells. Specifically, we have used whole cell recordings to measure the effect of repetitive electrical stimulation at the layer VI/white matter (WM) border on the synaptic response of layer V pyramidal cells to corticocortical input evoked by electrical stimulation of layer I or layer II/III and emulated by local application of glutamate. Repetitive stimulation (10 Hz for 3 s) at the layer VI/WM border transiently potentiated excitatory postsynaptic potentials (EPSPs) evoked by electrical stimulation of layer II/III by 97 +/- 12% (mean +/- SE). The recovery of EPSP amplitude to its preconditioning value was well-described by a single-term decaying exponential with a time constant of 7.2 s. The same layer VI/WM conditioning train that evoked layer II/III EPSP potentiation frequently caused an attenuation of layer I EPSPs. Similarly, subthreshold postsynaptic responses to local glutamate application in layers II/III and I were potentiated and attenuated, respectively, by the conditioning stimulus. Potentiation and attenuation could be evoked in the same cell by repositioning the glutamate puffer pipette in the appropriate layer. The conditioning stimulus that led to the transient modification of upper layer EPSP efficacy also evoked a slow depolarization in glial cells. The membrane potential of glial cells recovered with a time course similar to the dissipation of the potentiation effect, suggesting that stimulus-evoked changes in extracellular potassium (ECK) play a role in layer II/III EPSP potentiation. Consistent with this proposal, increasing the bath concentration of ECK caused a substantial increase of layer II/III EPSP amplitude. EPSP potentiation was sensitive to postsynaptic membrane potential and, more importantly, was significantly weaker for synaptic currents than for synaptic potentials, suggesting that it involves the recruitment of a postsynaptic voltage-dependent mechanism. Two observations suggest that layer II/III EPSP potentiation may involve the recruitment of postsynaptic sodium channels: EPSP potentiation was strongly reduced by intracellular application of N-(2,6-dimethyl-phenylcarbamoylmethyl) triethylammonium bromide (QX-314) and responses to local glutamate application were potentiated by high ECK in the presence of cadmium but not in the presence of tetrodotoxin. The results demonstrate a novel way in which brief periods of repetitive stimulus drive are accompanied by rapid, transient, and specific alterations in the functional connectivity and information processing characteristics of sensorimotor cortex.

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