Spike-timing-dependent potentiation of sensory surround in the somatosensory cortex is facilitated by deprivation-mediated disinhibition
Neuron. 2012-08-01; 75(3): 490-502
DOI: 10.1016/j.neuron.2012.05.020

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1. Neuron. 2012 Aug 9;75(3):490-502. doi: 10.1016/j.neuron.2012.05.020.
Spike-timing-dependent potentiation of sensory surround in the somatosensory
cortex is facilitated by deprivation-mediated disinhibition.
Gambino F(1), Holtmaat A.
Author information:
(1)Department of Basic Neurosciences, Faculty of Medicine, University of Geneva,
CMU, 1 rue Michel Servet, 1211 Geneva, Switzerland. frederic.gambino@unige.ch
Functional maps in the cerebral cortex reorganize in response to changes in
experience, but the synaptic underpinnings remain uncertain. Here, we demonstrate
that layer (L) 2/3 pyramidal cell synapses in mouse barrel cortex can be
potentiated upon pairing of whisker-evoked postsynaptic potentials (PSPs) with
action potentials (APs). This spike-timing-dependent long-term potentiation
(STD-LTP) was only effective for PSPs evoked by deflections of a whisker in the
neuron’s receptive field center, and not its surround. Trimming of all except two
whiskers rapidly opened the possibility to drive STD-LTP by the spared surround
whisker. This facilitated STD-LTP was associated with a strong decrease in the
surrounding whisker-evoked inhibitory conductance and partially occluded
picrotoxin-mediated LTP facilitation. Taken together, our data demonstrate that
sensory deprivation-mediated disinhibition facilitates STD-LTP from the sensory
surround, which may promote correlation- and experience-dependent expansion of
receptive fields.
Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
DOI: 10.1016/j.neuron.2012.05.020
PMID: 22884332 [Indexed for MEDLINE]