GABAergic Neurons in Ferret Visual Cortex Participate in Functionally Specific Networks.

ABSTRACT: Functional circuits in the visual cortex require the coordinated activity of excitatory and inhibitory neurons. Molecular genetic approaches in the mouse have led to the "local non-specific pooling principle" of inhibitory connectivity, in which inhibitory neurons are untuned for stimulus features due to the random pooling of local inputs. However, it remains unclear whether this principle generalizes to species with a columnar organization of feature selectivity such as carnivores, primates, and humans. Here we use virally mediated GABAergic-specific GCaMP6f expression to demonstrate that inhibitory neurons in ferret visual cortex respond robustly and selectively to oriented stimuli. We find that the tuning of inhibitory neurons is inconsistent with the local non-specific pooling of excit

SUBMITTER: Wilson DE 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5477844 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature