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Modeling mesoscopic cortical dynamics using a mean-field model of conductance-based networks of adaptive exponential integrate-and-fire neurons

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Abstract

Voltage-sensitive dye imaging (VSDi) has revealed fundamental properties of neocortical processing at macroscopic scales. Since for each pixel VSDi signals report the average membrane potential over hundreds of neurons, it seems natural to use a mean-field formalism to model such signals. Here, we present a mean-field model of networks of Adaptive Exponential (AdEx) integrate-and-fire neurons, with conductance-based synaptic interactions. We study a network of regular-spiking (RS) excitatory neurons and fast-spiking (FS) inhibitory neurons. We use a Master Equation formalism, together with a semi-analytic approach to the transfer function of AdEx neurons to describe the average dynamics of the coupled populations. We compare the predictions of this mean-field model to simulated networks of RS-FS cells, first at the level of the spontaneous activity of the network, which is well predicted by the analytical description. Second, we investigate the response of the network to time-varying external input, and show that the mean-field model predicts the response time course of the population. Finally, to model VSDi signals, we consider a one-dimensional ring model made of interconnected RS-FS mean-field units. We found that this model can reproduce the spatio-temporal patterns seen in VSDi of awake monkey visual cortex as a response to local and transient visual stimuli. Conversely, we show that the model allows one to infer physiological parameters from the experimentally-recorded spatio-temporal patterns.

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Acknowledgments

Research supported by the CNRS, the ICODE excellence network, the European Community: Human Brain Project H2020-720270 and a Flag-Era JTC (SLOW-DYN) to A.D., FET Grant BrainScaleS FP7-269921 to A.D. and F.C and the ANR BalaV1 and Trajectory (ANR-13-BSV4-0014-02 to F.C). Y.Z. was supported by fellowships from the Initiative d’Excellence Paris-Saclay and the Fondation pour la Recherche Médicale (FDT 20150532751).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Unité de Neurosciences, Information et Complexité, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, FRE 3693. 1 Avenue de la terrasse, 91198, Gif sur Yvette, France

    Yann Zerlaut & Alain Destexhe

  2. Neural Coding laboratory, Center for Neuroscience and Cognitive Systems @UniTn, Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, Corso Bettini 31, 38068, Rovereto, Italy

    Yann Zerlaut

  3. Centre de Recherche Cerveau et Cognition, UMR 5549 CNRS & Université Paul Sabatier Toulouse III, Place du Docteur Baylac, 31059, Toulouse, France

    Sandrine Chemla

  4. Institut de Neurosciences de la Timone (INT), UMR 7289 CNRS & Aix-Marseille Université, 27 Bd Jean Moulin, 13385, Marseille Cedex 05, France

    Sandrine Chemla & Frederic Chavane

  5. European Institute for Theoretical Neuroscience, 74 Rue du Faubourg Saint-Antoine, Paris, France

    Alain Destexhe

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  1. Yann Zerlaut
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  2. Sandrine Chemla
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Correspondence to Yann Zerlaut or Alain Destexhe.

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Experimental protocols have been approved by the Marseille Ethical Committee in Neuroscience (approval A10/01/13, official national registration French Ministry of Research). All procedures complied with the French and European regulations for animal research, as well as the guidelines from the Society for Neuroscience.

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The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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Zerlaut, Y., Chemla, S., Chavane, F. et al. Modeling mesoscopic cortical dynamics using a mean-field model of conductance-based networks of adaptive exponential integrate-and-fire neurons. J Comput Neurosci 44, 45–61 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10827-017-0668-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10827-017-0668-2

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