Optimization of Temporal Coding of Tactile Information in Rat Thalamus by Locus Coeruleus Activation
The brainstem noradrenergic nucleus, the locus coeruleus (LC), exerts heavy influences on sensory processing, perception, and cognition through its diffuse projections throughout the brain. Previous studies have demonstrated that LC activation modulates the response and feature selectivity of thalam...
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MDPI AG
2024-01-01
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| Online Access: | https://www.mdpi.com/2079-7737/13/2/79 |
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| author | Charles Rodenkirch Qi Wang |
| author_facet | Charles Rodenkirch Qi Wang |
| author_sort | Charles Rodenkirch |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | The brainstem noradrenergic nucleus, the locus coeruleus (LC), exerts heavy influences on sensory processing, perception, and cognition through its diffuse projections throughout the brain. Previous studies have demonstrated that LC activation modulates the response and feature selectivity of thalamic relay neurons. However, the extent to which LC modulates the temporal coding of sensory information in the thalamus remains mostly unknown. Here, we found that LC stimulation significantly altered the temporal structure of the responses of the thalamic relay neurons to repeated whisker stimulation. A substantial portion of events (i.e., time points where the stimulus reliably evoked spikes as evidenced by dramatic elevations in the firing rate of the spike density function) were removed during LC stimulation, but many new events emerged. Interestingly, spikes within the emerged events have a higher feature selectivity, and therefore transmit more information about a tactile stimulus, than spikes within the removed events. This suggests that LC stimulation optimized the temporal coding of tactile information to improve information transmission. We further reconstructed the original whisker stimulus from a population of thalamic relay neurons’ responses and corresponding feature selectivity. As expected, we found that reconstruction from thalamic responses was more accurate using spike trains of thalamic neurons recorded during LC stimulation than without LC stimulation, functionally confirming LC optimization of the thalamic temporal code. Together, our results demonstrated that activation of the LC-NE system optimizes temporal coding of sensory stimulus in the thalamus, presumably allowing for more accurate decoding of the stimulus in the downstream brain structures. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-07T22:41:49Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-96c3d648ce154194974d7916406a7fc5 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2079-7737 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-07T22:41:49Z |
| publishDate | 2024-01-01 |
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| series | Biology |
| spelling | doaj.art-96c3d648ce154194974d7916406a7fc52024-02-23T15:08:07ZengMDPI AGBiology2079-77372024-01-011327910.3390/biology13020079Optimization of Temporal Coding of Tactile Information in Rat Thalamus by Locus Coeruleus ActivationCharles Rodenkirch0Qi Wang1Department of Biomedical Engineering, Columbia University, ET 351, 500 W. 120th Street, New York, NY 10027, USADepartment of Biomedical Engineering, Columbia University, ET 351, 500 W. 120th Street, New York, NY 10027, USAThe brainstem noradrenergic nucleus, the locus coeruleus (LC), exerts heavy influences on sensory processing, perception, and cognition through its diffuse projections throughout the brain. Previous studies have demonstrated that LC activation modulates the response and feature selectivity of thalamic relay neurons. However, the extent to which LC modulates the temporal coding of sensory information in the thalamus remains mostly unknown. Here, we found that LC stimulation significantly altered the temporal structure of the responses of the thalamic relay neurons to repeated whisker stimulation. A substantial portion of events (i.e., time points where the stimulus reliably evoked spikes as evidenced by dramatic elevations in the firing rate of the spike density function) were removed during LC stimulation, but many new events emerged. Interestingly, spikes within the emerged events have a higher feature selectivity, and therefore transmit more information about a tactile stimulus, than spikes within the removed events. This suggests that LC stimulation optimized the temporal coding of tactile information to improve information transmission. We further reconstructed the original whisker stimulus from a population of thalamic relay neurons’ responses and corresponding feature selectivity. As expected, we found that reconstruction from thalamic responses was more accurate using spike trains of thalamic neurons recorded during LC stimulation than without LC stimulation, functionally confirming LC optimization of the thalamic temporal code. Together, our results demonstrated that activation of the LC-NE system optimizes temporal coding of sensory stimulus in the thalamus, presumably allowing for more accurate decoding of the stimulus in the downstream brain structures.https://www.mdpi.com/2079-7737/13/2/79locus coeruleustemporal codingfeature selectivitythe ventral posteromedial nucleus of the thalamus (VPm)the whisker system |
| spellingShingle | Charles Rodenkirch Qi Wang Optimization of Temporal Coding of Tactile Information in Rat Thalamus by Locus Coeruleus Activation Biology locus coeruleus temporal coding feature selectivity the ventral posteromedial nucleus of the thalamus (VPm) the whisker system |
| title | Optimization of Temporal Coding of Tactile Information in Rat Thalamus by Locus Coeruleus Activation |
| title_full | Optimization of Temporal Coding of Tactile Information in Rat Thalamus by Locus Coeruleus Activation |
| title_fullStr | Optimization of Temporal Coding of Tactile Information in Rat Thalamus by Locus Coeruleus Activation |
| title_full_unstemmed | Optimization of Temporal Coding of Tactile Information in Rat Thalamus by Locus Coeruleus Activation |
| title_short | Optimization of Temporal Coding of Tactile Information in Rat Thalamus by Locus Coeruleus Activation |
| title_sort | optimization of temporal coding of tactile information in rat thalamus by locus coeruleus activation |
| topic | locus coeruleus temporal coding feature selectivity the ventral posteromedial nucleus of the thalamus (VPm) the whisker system |
| url | https://www.mdpi.com/2079-7737/13/2/79 |
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