Decorrelated neuronal firing in cortical microcircuits
Abstract
Correlated trial-to-trial variability in the activity of cortical neurons is thought to reflect the functional connectivity of the circuit. Many cortical areas are organized into functional columns, in which neurons are believed to be densely connected and to share common input. Numerous studies report a high degree of correlated variability between nearby cells. We developed chronically implanted multitetrode arrays offering unprecedented recording quality to reexamine this question in the primary visual cortex of awake macaques. We found that even nearby neurons with similar orientation tuning show virtually no correlated variability. Our findings suggest a refinement of current models of cortical microcircuit architecture and function: Either adjacent neurons share only a few percent of their inputs or, alternatively, their activity is actively decorrelated.
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Changes in arousal, attentional state, and neuronal excitability modulate the level of correlated variability in sensory cortex.
“Further, changes in arousal, attentional state and neuronal excitability modulate the level of correlated variability in sensory cortex (Cohen and Maunsell, 2009; Ecker et al., 2010; Ecker and Tolias, 2014; Goris et al., 2014; I-Chun et al., 2015; Mitchell et al., 2009).”
From Waking state: rapid variations modulate neural and behavioral responses (2015) · cites this paper as Ecker et al., 2010
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- Authors
- Ecker, A. S., Berens, P., Keliris, G. A., Bethge, M., Logothetis, N. K., & Tolias, A. S.
- Affiliations
- Baylor College of Medicine (US)
- Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics (DE)
- University of Manchester (GB)
- Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center (US)
- Corresponding author
- Tolias, Andreas S.
- ORCID
- Venue
- Science
- Published
- 2010-01-29
- Volume
- 327
- Issue
- 5965
- Pages
- 584-587
- ISSN
- 0036-8075 (ISSN-L)
- 1095-9203
- OpenAlex
- W2145264576
- Cited by
- 640
- References
- 30
- Citations by year
- 2026: 9 · 2025: 21 · 2024: 30 · 2023: 18 · 2022: 22 · 2021: 28 · 2020: 29 · 2019: 59 · 2018: 34 · 2017: 45 · 2016: 49 · 2015: 55 · 2014: 51 · 2013: 63 · 2012: 41
- FWCI
- 36.33
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Science (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics (submittedVersion)
- MPG.PuRe (Max Planck Society) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- National Eye Institute (R01EY018847)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neural dynamics and brain function
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Visual perception and processing mechanisms
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience › Neuroscience and Neuropharmacology Research
- Keywords
- decorrelation, cortical microcircuits, primary visual cortex, orientation tuning, trial-to-trial variability, functional connectivity, shared inputs, macaque
- MeSH terms
- Action Potentials, Animals, Electrodes, Implanted, Macaca mulatta, Models, Neurological, Nerve Net, Neurons, Photic Stimulation, Synapses, Visual Cortex, Visual Pathways
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