Rhythm generation through period concatenation in rat somatosensory cortex
Date
2008
DOI
Authors
Kramer, Mark A.
Roopun, Anita K.
Carracedo, Lucy M.
Traub, Roger D.
Whittington, Miles A.
Kopell, Nancy J.
Version
OA Version
Citation
Kramer MA, Roopun AK, Carracedo LM, Traub RD, Whittington MA, Kopell NJ (2008) Rhythm Generation through Period Concatenation in Rat Somatosensory Cortex. PLoS Comput Biol 4(9): e1000169. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1000169
Abstract
Rhythmic voltage oscillations resulting from the summed activity of neuronal populations occur in many nervous systems. Contemporary observations suggest that coexistent oscillations interact and, in time, may switch in dominance. We recently reported an example of these interactions recorded from in vitro preparations of rat somatosensory cortex. We found that following an initial interval of coexistent gamma (∼25 ms period) and beta2 (∼40 ms period) rhythms in the superficial and deep cortical layers, respectively, a transition to a synchronous beta1 (∼65 ms period) rhythm in all cortical layers occurred. We proposed that the switch to beta1 activity resulted from the novel mechanism of period concatenation of the faster rhythms: gamma period (25 ms)+beta2 period (40 ms) = beta1 period (65 ms). In this article, we investigate in greater detail the fundamental mechanisms of the beta1 rhythm. To do so we describe additional in vitro experiments that constrain a biologically realistic, yet simplified, computational model of the activity. We use the model to suggest that the dynamic building blocks (or motifs) of the gamma and beta2 rhythms combine to produce a beta1 oscillation that exhibits cross-frequency interactions. Through the combined approach of in vitro experiments and mathematical modeling we isolate the specific components that promote or destroy each rhythm. We propose that mechanisms vital to establishing the beta1 oscillation include strengthened connections between a population of deep layer intrinsically bursting cells and a transition from antidromic to orthodromic spike generation in these cells. We conclude that neural activity in the superficial and deep cortical layers may temporally combine to generate a slower oscillation.
Description
License
Copyright: © 2008 Kramer et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.