Long-term stability of cortical ensembles

Neuronal ensembles, coactive groups of neurons found in spontaneous and evoked cortical activity, are causally related to memories and perception, but it is still unknown how stable or flexible they are over time. We used two-photon multiplane calcium imaging to track over weeks the activity of the...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:eLife 2021-07, Vol.10
Main Authors: Pérez-Ortega, Jesús, Alejandre-García, Tzitzitlini, Yuste, Rafael
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Animals
Calcium - metabolism
Calcium imaging
ensembles
Evoked Potentials, Visual
Humans
memory
Mice
Mice, Inbred C57BL
Mice, Transgenic
multiplane
Neural networks
Neuroimaging
Neurons
Neurons - physiology
Neuroscience
Photic Stimulation
Pyramidal cells
Pyramidal Cells - physiology
Short Report
Signal to noise ratio
stability
two-photon
Visual cortex
Visual Cortex - cytology
Visual Cortex - physiology
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Neuronal ensembles, coactive groups of neurons found in spontaneous and evoked cortical activity, are causally related to memories and perception, but it is still unknown how stable or flexible they are over time. We used two-photon multiplane calcium imaging to track over weeks the activity of the same pyramidal neurons in layer 2/3 of the visual cortex from awake mice and recorded their spontaneous and visually evoked responses. Less than half of the neurons remained active across any two imaging sessions. These stable neurons formed ensembles that lasted weeks, but some ensembles were also transient and appeared only in one single session. Stable ensembles preserved most of their neurons for up to 46 days, our longest imaged period, and these 'core' cells had stronger functional connectivity. Our results demonstrate that neuronal ensembles can last for weeks and could, in principle, serve as a substrate for long-lasting representation of perceptual states or memories.
ISSN:2050-084X
2050-084X
DOI:10.7554/elife.64449