Thalamocortical interactions shape hierarchical neural variability during stimulus perception

The brain is organized hierarchically to process sensory signals. But, how do functional connections within and across areas contribute to this hierarchical order? We addressed this problem in the thalamocortical network, while monkeys detected vibrotactile stimulus. During this task, we quantified...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Tauste Campo, Adrián Francisco|||0000-0003-0982-4017, Zainos Rosales, Antonio Paulino, Vázquez, Yuriria, Segarra, Raul Adell, Álvarez López, Jesús Manuel, Deco, Gustavo, Díaz Osornio, Jaime Héctor, Parra Sanchez, Sergio, Romo, Ranulfo, Rossi Pool, Roman
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Fecha de publicación:2024
País:España
Institución:Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC)
Repositorio:UPCommons. Portal del coneixement obert de la UPC
Idioma:inglés
OAI Identifier:oai:upcommons.upc.edu:2117/410811
Acceso en línea:https://hdl.handle.net/2117/410811
https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.isci.2024.110065
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Computational neuroscience
Sensory neurons
Cognitive neuroscience
Epilepsy
Neuroscience
Sensory neuroscience
Neurociència computacional
Neurones sensorials
Neurociència cognitiva
Epilèpsia
Àrees temàtiques de la UPC::Ciències de la salut::Medicina::Neurologia
Descripción
Sumario:The brain is organized hierarchically to process sensory signals. But, how do functional connections within and across areas contribute to this hierarchical order? We addressed this problem in the thalamocortical network, while monkeys detected vibrotactile stimulus. During this task, we quantified neural variability and directed functional connectivity in simultaneously recorded neurons sharing the cutaneous receptive field within and across VPL and areas 3b and 1. Before stimulus onset, VPL and area 3b exhibited similar fast dynamics while area 1 showed slower timescales. During the stimulus presence, inter-trial neural variability increased along the network VPL-3b-1 while VPL established two main feedforward pathways with areas 3b and 1 to process the stimulus. This lower variability of VPL and area 3b was found to regulate feedforward thalamocortical pathways. Instead, intra-cortical interactions were only anticipated by higher intrinsic timescales in area 1. Overall, our results provide evidence of hierarchical functional roles along the thalamocortical network.