Specific inhibition and disinhibition in the higher-order structure of a cortical connectome.

ABSTRACT: Neurons are thought to act as parts of assemblies with strong internal excitatory connectivity. Conversely, inhibition is often reduced to blanket inhibition with no targeting specificity. We analyzed the structure of excitation and inhibition in the MICrONS $mm^{3}$ dataset, an electron microscopic reconstruction of a piece of cortical tissue. We found that excitation was structured around a feed-forward flow in large non-random neuron motifs with a structure of information flow from a small number of sources to a larger number of potential targets. Inhibitory neurons connected with neurons in specific sequential positions of these motifs, implementing targeted and symmetrical competition between them. None of these trends are detectable in only pairwise connectivity, demonstrating that i

SUBMITTER: Reimann MW 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11551764 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature