Self-organization of modular activity in immature cortical networks.

ABSTRACT: During development, cortical activity is organized into distributed modular patterns that are a precursor of the mature columnar functional architecture. Theoretically, such structured neural activity can emerge dynamically from local synaptic interactions through a recurrent network with effective local excitation with lateral inhibition (LE/LI) connectivity. Utilizing simultaneous widefield calcium imaging and optogenetics in juvenile ferret cortex prior to eye opening, we directly test several critical predictions of an LE/LI mechanism. We show that cortical networks transform uniform stimulations into diverse modular patterns exhibiting a characteristic spatial wavelength. Moreover, patterned optogenetic stimulation matching this wavelength selectively biases evoked activity patterns,

SUBMITTER: Mulholland HN 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10925298 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature