Article abstract
Nature Neuroscience 11, 1343 - 1351 (2008)
Published online: 28 September 2008 | doi:10.1038/nn.2199
Origin of correlated activity between parasol retinal ganglion cells
Philipp Khuc Trong1,2 & Fred Rieke1
Abstract
Cells throughout the CNS have synchronous activity patterns; that is, a cell's probability of generating an action potential depends both on its firing rate and on the occurrence of action potentials in surrounding cells. The mechanisms producing synchronous or correlated activity are poorly understood despite its prevalence and potential effect on neural coding. We found that neighboring parasol ganglion cells in primate retina received strongly correlated synaptic input in the absence of modulated light stimuli. This correlated variability appeared to arise through the same circuits that provide uncorrelated synaptic input. In addition, ON, but not OFF, parasol cells were coupled electrically. Correlated variability in synaptic input, however, dominated correlations in the parasol spike outputs and shared variability in the timing of action potentials generated by neighboring cells. These results provide a mechanistic picture of how correlated activity is produced in a population of neurons that are critical for visual perception.
- Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Department of Physiology and Biophysics, University of Washington, 1959 NE Pacific Street, HSB J187, Seattle, Washington 98195, USA.
- Present address: Department of Physics, University of Technology Kaiserslautern, Kaiserslautern Rhineland-Palatinate 67653, Germany.
Correspondence to: Fred Rieke1 e-mail: rieke@u.washington.edu
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