ALBERT

Description: A large population of neurons can, in principle, produce an astronomical number of distinct firing patterns. In cortex, however, these patterns lie in a space of lower dimension, as if individual neurons were "obedient members of a huge orchestra". Here we use recordings from the visual cortex of mouse (Mus musculus) and monkey (Macaca mulatta) to investigate the relationship between individual neurons and the population, and to establish the underlying circuit mechanisms. We show that neighbouring neurons can differ in their coupling to the overall firing of the population, ranging from strongly coupled 'choristers' to weakly coupled 'soloists'. Population coupling is largely independent of sensory preferences, and it is a fixed cellular attribute, invariant to stimulus conditions. Neurons with high population coupling are more strongly affected by non-sensory behavioural variables such as motor intention. Population coupling reflects a causal relationship, predicting the response of a neuron to optogenetically driven increases in local activity. Moreover, population coupling indicates synaptic connectivity; the population coupling of a neuron, measured in vivo, predicted subsequent in vitro estimates of the number of synapses received from its neighbours. Finally, population coupling provides a compact summary of population activity; knowledge of the population couplings of n neurons predicts a substantial portion of their n(2) pairwise correlations. Population coupling therefore represents a novel, simple measure that characterizes the relationship of each neuron to a larger population, explaining seemingly complex network firing patterns in terms of basic circuit variables.〈br /〉〈br /〉〈a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4449271/" 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/PMC4449271/" target="_blank"〉This paper as free author manuscript - peer-reviewed and accepted for publication〈/a〉〈br /〉〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Okun, Michael -- Steinmetz, Nicholas A -- Cossell, Lee -- Iacaruso, M Florencia -- Ko, Ho -- Bartho, Peter -- Moore, Tirin -- Hofer, Sonja B -- Mrsic-Flogel, Thomas D -- Carandini, Matteo -- Harris, Kenneth D -- 095668/Wellcome Trust/United Kingdom -- 095669/Wellcome Trust/United Kingdom -- 095853/Wellcome Trust/United Kingdom -- EY014924/EY/NEI NIH HHS/ -- R01 EY014924/EY/NEI NIH HHS/ -- T32 MH020016/MH/NIMH NIH HHS/ -- Howard Hughes Medical Institute/ -- Medical Research Council/United Kingdom -- Wellcome Trust/United Kingdom -- England -- Nature. 2015 May 28;521(7553):511-5. doi: 10.1038/nature14273. Epub 2015 Apr 6.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉1] UCL Institute of Neurology, University College London, London WC1N 3BG, UK [2] Department of Neuroscience, Physiology and Pharmacology, University College London, London WC1E 6DE, UK [3] UCL Institute of Ophthalmology, University College London, London EC1V 9EL, UK. ; 1] UCL Institute of Neurology, University College London, London WC1N 3BG, UK [2] Department of Neuroscience, Physiology and Pharmacology, University College London, London WC1E 6DE, UK [3] UCL Institute of Ophthalmology, University College London, London EC1V 9EL, UK [4] Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Department of Neurobiology, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305-5125, USA. ; 1] Department of Neuroscience, Physiology and Pharmacology, University College London, London WC1E 6DE, UK [2] Biozentrum, University of Basel, Klingelbergstrasse 50/70, CH-4056 Basel, Switzerland. ; Department of Neuroscience, Physiology and Pharmacology, University College London, London WC1E 6DE, UK. ; Center for Molecular and Behavioral Neuroscience, Rutgers University, 197 University Avenue, Newark, New Jersey 07102, USA. ; Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Department of Neurobiology, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305-5125, USA. ; UCL Institute of Ophthalmology, University College London, London EC1V 9EL, UK. ; 1] UCL Institute of Neurology, University College London, London WC1N 3BG, UK [2] Department of Neuroscience, Physiology and Pharmacology, University College London, London WC1E 6DE, UK [3] Center for Molecular and Behavioral Neuroscience, Rutgers University, 197 University Avenue, Newark, New Jersey 07102, USA.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25849776" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉