Flexible information routing by transient synchrony

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Abstract

Brain function relies on flexible communication between cortical regions. It has been proposed that changing patterns of oscillatory coherence underlie information routing. However, oscillations in vivo are very irregular. This study shows that short-lived and stochastic oscillatory bursts coordinate across areas to selectively modulate interareal communication.

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Synaptic mechanisms of synchronized gamma oscillations in inhibitory interneuron networks.

Marlene Bartos, Imre Vida, Peter Jonas (2007)

Gamma frequency oscillations are thought to provide a temporal structure for information processing in the brain. They contribute to cognitive functions, such as memory formation and sensory processing, and are disturbed in some psychiatric disorders. Fast-spiking, parvalbumin-expressing, soma-inhibiting interneurons have a key role in the generation of these oscillations. Experimental analysis in the hippocampus and the neocortex reveals that synapses among these interneurons are highly specialized. Computational analysis further suggests that synaptic specialization turns interneuron networks into robust gamma frequency oscillators.

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Mattia Rigotti, Omri Barak, Melissa R Warden … (2013)

Single-neuron activity in the prefrontal cortex (PFC) is tuned to mixtures of multiple task-related aspects. Such mixed selectivity is highly heterogeneous, seemingly disordered and therefore difficult to interpret. We analysed the neural activity recorded in monkeys during an object sequence memory task to identify a role of mixed selectivity in subserving the cognitive functions ascribed to the PFC. We show that mixed selectivity neurons encode distributed information about all task-relevant aspects. Each aspect can be decoded from the population of neurons even when single-cell selectivity to that aspect is eliminated. Moreover, mixed selectivity offers a significant computational advantage over specialized responses in terms of the repertoire of input-output functions implementable by readout neurons. This advantage originates from the highly diverse nonlinear selectivity to mixtures of task-relevant variables, a signature of high-dimensional neural representations. Crucially, this dimensionality is predictive of animal behaviour as it collapses in error trials. Our findings recommend a shift of focus for future studies from neurons that have easily interpretable response tuning to the widely observed, but rarely analysed, mixed selectivity neurons.

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Joerg F. Hipp, David J. Hawellek, Maurizio Corbetta … (2012)

Little is known about the brain-wide correlation of electrophysiological signals. We found that spontaneous oscillatory neuronal activity exhibited frequency-specific spatial correlation structure in the human brain. We developed an analysis approach that discounts spurious correlation of signal power caused by the limited spatial resolution of electrophysiological measures. We applied this approach to source estimates of spontaneous neuronal activity reconstructed from magnetoencephalography. Overall, correlation of power across cortical regions was strongest in the alpha to beta frequency range (8–32 Hz) and correlation patterns depended on the underlying oscillation frequency. Global hubs resided in the medial temporal lobe in the theta frequency range (4–6 Hz), in lateral parietal areas in the alpha to beta frequency range (8–23 Hz) and in sensorimotor areas for higher frequencies (32–45 Hz). Our data suggest that interactions in various large-scale cortical networks may be reflected in frequency-specific power envelope correlations.