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. 2010;5(7):7278.
doi: 10.4249/scholarpedia.7278.

Vibrissal thalamic modes

Manuel Castro-Alamancos  1
Affiliations

Vibrissal thalamic modes

Manuel Castro-Alamancos. Scholarpedia J. 2010.

Abstract

A thalamic mode (or thalamocortical mode) refers to a particular arrangement of the response properties of the thalamocortical network that gives rise to a distinct input-output function. Since the thalamus controls the flow of information to the neocortex, a thalamic mode adjusts how thalamocortical cells relay sensory and corticothalamic information. Thalamic modes can change on a moment-to-moment basis due to the actions of neuromodulators and/or excitatory and inhibitory inputs. In the vibrissal system, thalamic modes lead to robust changes on how sensory information from the vibrissa is processed temporally, integrated spatially and relayed to the neocortex.

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Figures

Figure 1:
Figure 1:. Main components of the thalamocortical network and intracellular responses of a VPM thalamocortical cell to medial lemniscus (lemniscal) fiber stimulation in a slice preparation.
The cell is held at different membrane potentials within the tonic firing and burst modes. Electrical stimulation of the lemniscal fibers consists of 4 pulses at 10 Hz. Each train of pulses is delivered every 10 sec, so the first pulse arrives at low frequency. Because lemniscal EPSPs depress at high frequencies, the stimulus only evokes spikes to the high frequency pulses when the cell is well depolarized within the tonic mode. (see (Castro-Alamancos, 2002a) for details)
Figure 2:
Figure 2:
Table listing the main effects of different thalamocortical modes onspontaneous thalamocortical firing, the relay of sensory inputs to theneocortex, sensory response receptive fields, and corticothalamic feedbackresponses
Figure 3:
Figure 3:. Spontaneous thalamocortical spikes or evoked by single-whisker deflections of the principal whisker (PW) or 4 adjacent whiskers (AWs) in a urethane anesthetized rat during the slow oscillation, cholinergic and noradrenergic modes.
The cholinergic mode was induced by application of a cholinergic agonist into the thalamus and the noradrenergic mode was induced by subsequent application of a noradrenergic agonist into the thalamus. (see (Hirata et al., 2006) for details)
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References

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External links

    1. Author’s website ( http://www.Castro-Lab.org)
    1. Sponsored by: Prof. Ehud Ahissar, Department of Neurobiology, The Weizmann Institute, Rehovot Reviewed by ( http://www.scholarpedia.org/w/index.php?title=Vibrissal_thalamic_modes&o...) : Anonymous.
    1. Accepted on: 2010-07-22 09:17:14 GMT ( http://www.scholarpedia.org/w/index.php?title=Vibrissal_thalamic_modes&o...)

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