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Bilaterally propagating waves of spontaneous activity arising from discrete pacemakers in the neonatal mouse cerebral cortex
Author(s) -
Lischalk Jonathan W.,
Easton Curtis R.,
Moody William J.
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
developmental neurobiology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.716
H-Index - 129
eISSN - 1932-846X
pISSN - 1932-8451
DOI - 10.1002/dneu.20708
Subject(s) - neuroscience , biology , cerebral cortex , brain waves , excitatory postsynaptic potential , property (philosophy) , cortex (anatomy) , physics , electroencephalography , inhibitory postsynaptic potential , philosophy , epistemology
Spontaneous electrical activity that moves in synchronized waves across large populations of neurons plays widespread and important roles in nervous system development. The propagation patterns of such waves can encode the spatial location of neurons to their downstream targets and strengthen synaptic connections in coherent spatial patterns. Such waves can arise as an emergent property of mutually excitatory neural networks, or can be driven by a discrete pacemaker. In the mouse cerebral cortex, spontaneous synchronized activity occurs for approximately 72 h of development centered on the day of birth. It is not known whether this activity is driven by a discrete pacemaker or occurs as an emergent network property. Here we show that this activity propagates as a wave that is initiated at either of two homologous pacemakers in the temporal region, and then propagates rapidly across both sides of the brain. When these regions of origin are surgically isolated, waves do not occur. Therefore, this cortical spontaneous activity is a bilateral wave that originates from a discrete subset of pacemaker neurons. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Develop Neurobiol, 2009