Publication Date:
2010-10-26
Description:
In songbirds, the remarkable temporal precision of song is generated by a sparse sequence of bursts in the premotor nucleus HVC. To distinguish between two possible classes of models of neural sequence generation, we carried out intracellular recordings of HVC neurons in singing zebra finches (Taeniopygia guttata). We found that the subthreshold membrane potential is characterized by a large, rapid depolarization 5-10 ms before burst onset, consistent with a synaptically connected chain of neurons in HVC. We found no evidence for the slow membrane potential modulation predicted by models in which burst timing is controlled by subthreshold dynamics. Furthermore, bursts ride on an underlying depolarization of approximately 10-ms duration, probably the result of a regenerative calcium spike within HVC neurons that could facilitate the propagation of activity through a chain network with high temporal precision. Our results provide insight into the fundamental mechanisms by which neural circuits can generate complex sequential behaviours.〈br /〉〈br /〉〈a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2998755/" target="_blank"〉〈img src="https://static.pubmed.gov/portal/portal3rc.fcgi/4089621/img/3977009" border="0"〉〈/a〉 〈a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2998755/" target="_blank"〉This paper as free author manuscript - peer-reviewed and accepted for publication〈/a〉〈br /〉〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Long, Michael A -- Jin, Dezhe Z -- Fee, Michale S -- DC009280/DC/NIDCD NIH HHS/ -- MH067105/MH/NIMH NIH HHS/ -- R01 MH067105/MH/NIMH NIH HHS/ -- R01 MH067105-06/MH/NIMH NIH HHS/ -- R01 MH067105-07/MH/NIMH NIH HHS/ -- England -- Nature. 2010 Nov 18;468(7322):394-9. doi: 10.1038/nature09514. Epub 2010 Oct 24.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20972420" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉
Keywords:
Animals
;
Calcium Channels, L-Type/metabolism
;
Calcium Signaling/drug effects
;
Finches/*physiology
;
Male
;
Membrane Potentials/drug effects
;
*Models, Neurological
;
Neural Pathways/drug effects/*physiology
;
Neurons/drug effects/*metabolism
;
Sleep/physiology
;
Synapses/*metabolism
;
Vocalization, Animal/physiology
Print ISSN:
0028-0836
Electronic ISSN:
1476-4687
Topics:
Biology
,
Chemistry and Pharmacology
,
Medicine
,
Natural Sciences in General
,
Physics
