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The Journal of Neuroscience, October 15, 2000, 20(20):7579-7586
The Excitatory Neuronal Network of Rat Layer 4 Barrel Cortex
Carl C. H.
Petersen and
Bert
Sakmann
Department of Cell Physiology, Max-Planck-Institute for Medical
Research, Heidelberg D-69120, Germany
Sensory whiskers are mapped to rodent layer 4 somatosensory cortex
as discrete units termed barrels, which can be visualized at high
resolution in living brain slices. Both anatomical and physiological
properties of the layer 4 neuronal network can thus be investigated in
the context of the functional boundaries of this sensory map.
Large-scale confinement of neuronal arbors to single barrels was
suggested by restricted lateral diffusion of DiI across septa between
barrels. Morphological analysis of dendritic and axonal arborizations
of individual excitatory neurons showed that neuronal processes remain
within the barrel of origin through polarization toward the center of
the barrel. Functionally, the large-scale properties of the neuronal
network were investigated through mapping the spatial extent of field
EPSPs, which were found to attenuate at barrel borders. This ensemble
property of a layer 4 barrel was further investigated by analyzing the
connectivity of pairs of excitatory neurons with respect to the
locations of the somata. Approximately one-third of the excitatory
neurons within the same barrel were synaptically coupled. At the septum between adjacent barrels the connectivity dropped rapidly, and very few
connections were found between neurons located in adjacent barrels.
Each layer 4 barrel is thus composed of an excitatory neuronal network,
which to a first order approximation, acts independently of its neighbors.
Key words:
neocortex; somatosensory cortex; barrel cortex; layer 4; synaptic transmission; EPSP; glutamate; neuronal network; dendritic
morphology; axonal morphology
Copyright © 2000 Society for Neuroscience 0270-6474/00/20207579-08$05.00/0
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