“… Using dynamic-clamp techniques in thalamic slices in vitro, we combined theoretical and experimental approaches to implement a realistic hybrid retino-thalamo-cortical pathway mixing biological cells and simulated circuits. … The study of the impact of the simulated cortical input on the global retinocortical signal transfer efficiency revealed a novel control mechanism resulting from the collective resonance of all thalamic relay neurons. We show here that the transfer efficiency of sensory input transmission depends on three key features: i) the number of thalamocortical cells involved in the many-to-one convergence from thalamus to cortex, ii) the statistics of the corticothalamic synaptic bombardment and iii) the level of correlation imposed between converging thalamic relay cells. In particular, our results demonstrate counterintuitively that the retinocortical signal transfer efficiency increases when the level of correlation across thalamic cells decreases. …”
Model Type: Realistic Network
Region(s) or Organism(s): Neocortex; Thalamus; Retina
Cell Type(s): Thalamus geniculate nucleus/lateral principal GLU cell; Thalamus reticular nucleus GABA cell; Neocortex U1 L5B pyramidal pyramidal tract GLU cell; Retina ganglion GLU cell; Thalamus lateral geniculate nucleus interneuron
Currents: I Na,t; I T low threshold; I K; I M
Model Concept(s): Synaptic Convergence
Simulation Environment: NEURON
Implementer(s): Behuret, Sebastien [behuret at unic.cnrs-gif.fr]
References:
Béhuret S, Deleuze C, Gomez L, Frégnac Y, Bal T. (2013). Cortically-controlled population stochastic facilitation as a plausible substrate for guiding sensory transfer across the thalamic gateway PLoS computational biology. 9 [PubMed]