a-guide-to-vivo-single-unit-recording-from-optogenetically-identified

A Guide to <em>In vivo </em>Single-unit Recording from Optogenetically Identified Cortical Inhibitory Interneurons

A major challenge in neurophysiology has been to characterize the response properties and function of the numerous inhibitory cell types in the cerebral ...

University of Oregon

In the auditory cortex, synaptic inhibition is known to be involved in shaping receptive fields, enhancing temporal precision, and regulating gain. Cortical inhibition is provided by local GABAergic interneurons, which comprise 10-20% of the cortical population and can be separated into numerous subclasses. The morphological and physiological diversity of interneurons suggests that these different subclasses have unique roles in sound processing; however, these roles are yet unknown. Understanding the receptive field properties of distinct inhibitory cell types will be critical to elucidating their computational function in cortical circuits. Here we characterized the tuning and response properties of parvalbumin-positive (PV+) interneurons, the largest inhibitory subclass. We used channelrhodopsin-2 (ChR2) as an optogenetic tag to identify PV+ and PV- neurons in vivo in transgenic mice. In contrast to PV+ neurons in mouse visual cortex, which are broadly tuned for orientation, we found that auditory cortical PV+ neurons were well tuned for frequency, although very tightly tuned PV+ cells were uncommon. This suggests that PV+ neurons play a minor role in shaping frequency tuning, and is consistent with the idea that PV+ neurons nonselectively pool input from the local network. PV+ interneurons had shallower response gain and were less intensity-tuned than PV- neurons, suggesting that PV+ neurons provide dynamic gain control and shape intensity tuning in auditory cortex. PV+ neurons also had markedly faster response latencies than PV- neurons, consistent with a computational role in enhancing the temporal precision of cortical responses.

Parvalbumin-expressing inhibitory interneurons in auditory cortex are well-tuned for frequency.

Understanding speech in the presence of background noise often becomes increasingly difficult with age. These age-related speech processing deficits reflect impairments in temporal acuity. Gap detection is a model for temporal acuity in speech processing in which a gap inserted in white noise acts as a cue that attenuates subsequent startle responses. Lesion studies have shown that auditory cortex is necessary for the detection of brief gaps, and auditory cortical neurons respond to the end of the gap with a characteristic burst of spikes called the gap termination response (GTR). However, it remains unknown whether and how the GTR plays a causal role in gap detection. We tested this by optogenetically suppressing the activity of somatostatin- or parvalbumin-expressing inhibitory interneurons, or CaMKII-expressing excitatory neurons, in auditory cortex of behaving mice during specific epochs of a gap detection protocol.

Article	Year
Parvalbumin-expressing inhibitory interneurons in auditory cortex are well-tuned for frequency. The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience\| PubMed ID: 23966693	2013
Perceptual gap detection is mediated by gap termination responses in auditory cortex. Current biology : CB\| PubMed ID: 24980499	2014

Alexandra K. Moore

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