Neuron
Volume 75, Issue 3, 9 August 2012, Pages 490-502
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Article
Spike-Timing-Dependent Potentiation of Sensory Surround in the Somatosensory Cortex Is Facilitated by Deprivation-Mediated Disinhibition

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Summary

Functional maps in the cerebral cortex reorganize in response to changes in experience, but the synaptic underpinnings remain uncertain. Here, we demonstrate that layer (L) 2/3 pyramidal cell synapses in mouse barrel cortex can be potentiated upon pairing of whisker-evoked postsynaptic potentials (PSPs) with action potentials (APs). This spike-timing-dependent long-term potentiation (STD-LTP) was only effective for PSPs evoked by deflections of a whisker in the neuron’s receptive field center, and not its surround. Trimming of all except two whiskers rapidly opened the possibility to drive STD-LTP by the spared surround whisker. This facilitated STD-LTP was associated with a strong decrease in the surrounding whisker-evoked inhibitory conductance and partially occluded picrotoxin-mediated LTP facilitation. Taken together, our data demonstrate that sensory deprivation-mediated disinhibition facilitates STD-LTP from the sensory surround, which may promote correlation- and experience-dependent expansion of receptive fields.

Highlights

► Sensory-driven STD-LTP is elicited in the mouse barrel cortex L2/3 in vivo ► Sensory deprivation causes disinhibition and facilitates surround whisker-STD-LTP ► Deprivation-mediated increase in LTP partially occludes PTX-mediated LTP facilitation

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