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Dynamics and sources of response variability and its coordination in visual cortex

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 December 2019

Mahmood S. Hoseini Open the ORCID record for Mahmood S. Hoseini [Opens in a new window] ,
Nathaniel C. Wright ,
Ji Xia ,
Wesley Clawson ,
Woodrow Shew  and
Ralf Wessel
Mahmood S. Hoseini*
Affiliation:
Department of Physics, Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri
Nathaniel C. Wright
Affiliation:
Department of Physics, Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri
Ji Xia
Affiliation:
Department of Physics, Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri
Wesley Clawson
Affiliation:
Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, Arkansas
Woodrow Shew
Affiliation:
Department of Physics, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, Arkansas
Ralf Wessel
Affiliation:
Department of Physics, Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri
*
*Address correspondence to: Mahmood S. Hoseini, Email: mhoseini@phy.ucsf.edu
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Abstract

The trial-to-trial response variability in sensory cortices and the extent to which this variability can be coordinated among cortical units have strong implications for cortical signal processing. Yet, little is known about the relative contributions and dynamics of defined sources to the cortical response variability and their correlations across cortical units. To fill this knowledge gap, here we obtained and analyzed multisite local field potential (LFP) recordings from visual cortex of turtles in response to repeated naturalistic movie clips and decomposed cortical across-trial LFP response variability into three defined sources, namely, input, network, and local fluctuations. We found that input fluctuations dominate cortical response variability immediately following stimulus onset, whereas network fluctuations dominate the response variability in the steady state during continued visual stimulation. Concurrently, we found that the network fluctuations dominate the correlations of the variability during the ongoing and steady-state epochs, but not immediately following stimulus onset. Furthermore, simulations of various model networks indicated that (i) synaptic time constants, leading to oscillatory activity, and (ii) synaptic clustering and synaptic depression, leading to spatially constrained pockets of coherent activity, are both essential features of cortical circuits to mediate the observed relative contributions and dynamics of input, network, and local fluctuations to the cortical LFP response variability and their correlations across recording sites. In conclusion, these results show how a mélange of multiscale thalamocortical circuit features mediate a complex stimulus-modulated cortical activity that, when naively related to the visual stimulus alone, appears disguised as high and coordinated across-trial response variability.

Keywords

Response variabilityVisual cortexTurtleCorrelationLocal field potential
Type
Research Article
Information
Visual Neuroscience , Volume 36 , 2019 , E013
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2019 

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Footnotes

†

Current address: Center for Integrative Neuroscience, Department of Physiology, 675 Nelson Rising Lane, University of California, San Francisco, California.

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