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Functional specificity of local synaptic connections in neocortical networks

Ko, Ho and Hofer, Sonja B. and Pichler, Bruno and Buchanan, Katherine A. and Sjöström, P. Jesper and Mrsic-Flogel, Thomas D.. (2011) Functional specificity of local synaptic connections in neocortical networks. Nature, 473 (7345). pp. 87-91.

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Official URL: http://edoc.unibas.ch/49623/

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Abstract

Neuronal connectivity is fundamental to information processing in the brain. Therefore, understanding the mechanisms of sensory processing requires uncovering how connection patterns between neurons relate to their function. On a coarse scale, long-range projections can preferentially link cortical regions with similar responses to sensory stimuli. But on the local scale, where dendrites and axons overlap substantially, the functional specificity of connections remains unknown. Here we determine synaptic connectivity between nearby layer 2/3 pyramidal neurons in vitro, the response properties of which were first characterized in mouse visual cortex in vivo. We found that connection probability was related to the similarity of visually driven neuronal activity. Neurons with the same preference for oriented stimuli connected at twice the rate of neurons with orthogonal orientation preferences. Neurons responding similarly to naturalistic stimuli formed connections at much higher rates than those with uncorrelated responses. Bidirectional synaptic connections were found more frequently between neuronal pairs with strongly correlated visual responses. Our results reveal the degree of functional specificity of local synaptic connections in the visual cortex, and point to the existence of fine-scale subnetworks dedicated to processing related sensory information.
Faculties and Departments:05 Faculty of Science > Departement Biozentrum > Former Organization Units Biozentrum > Neuronal circuits and brain function (Hofer)
UniBasel Contributors:Hofer, Sonja and Mrsic-Flogel, Thomas
Item Type:Article, refereed
Article Subtype:Research Article
Publisher:Macmillan
ISSN:0028-0836
e-ISSN:1476-4687
Note:Publication type according to Uni Basel Research Database: Journal article
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Last Modified:30 Nov 2017 10:01
Deposited On:30 Nov 2017 10:01

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