Adam Kohn
(Albert Einstein College of Medicine)
Friday 26th October 2012
Time: 2pm
B10 Basement Seminar Room
Alexandra House, 17 Queen Square, London, WC1N 3AR
Coordinated neuronal activity and its role in corticocortical signaling
Spiking activity in cortex is coordinated on a range of spatial and temporal scales. Numerous studies have shown that external events and internal states can alter this coordination, and suggested that this affects encoding by neuronal populations. Much less explored is how coordinated activity influences the relaying of signals between cortical areas and the computations they perform. To tackle this issue, we have recorded simultaneously from populations of neurons in the superficial layers of primary visual cortex (V1) of macaque monkeys, and from their downstream targets in the middle layers of V2. We find that spiking activity in V2 neurons is associated with a brief increase in V1 spiking correlations. Stimulus manipulations that enhance brief timescale V1 synchrony lead to stronger coupling between these networks. Our results suggest that the coordination of spiking activity within a cortical area influences its coupling with downstream areas.
http://www.einstein.yu.edu/faculty/10522/adam-kohn/