Abstract
Previous studies in cat visual cortex reported that area 18 can actively drive neurons in area 17 through cortico-cortical projections. However, the dynamics of such cortico-cortical interaction remains unclear. Here we used multielectrode arrays to examine the spatiotemporal pattern of neuronal activity in cat visual cortex across the 17/18 border. We found that full-field contrast reversal gratings evoked oscillatory wave activity propagating from area 18 to 17. The wave direction was independent of the grating orientation, and could not be accounted for by the spatial distribution of receptive field latencies, suggesting that the waves are largely mediated by intrinsic connections in the cortex. Different from the evoked waves, spontaneous waves propagated along both directions across the 17/18 border. Together, our results suggest that visual stimulation may enhance the flow of information from area 18 to 17.
Highlights
Theoretical studies showed that a traveling wave is an emergent behavior of systems with spatially restricted connectivity [1,2,3]
A single spike can initiate a radial wave across the surface of cortex [18], and a local visual stimulus can evoke a traveling wave spreading from the retinotoptic representation of the stimulus to neighboring cortical area [8,10]
We have examined the spatiotemporal properties of population activity across areas 17 and 18 by recording local field potentials (LFPs) from the superficial layers with multielectrode arrays
Summary
Theoretical studies showed that a traveling wave is an emergent behavior of systems with spatially restricted connectivity [1,2,3]. A single spike can initiate a radial wave across the surface of cortex [18], and a local visual stimulus can evoke a traveling wave spreading from the retinotoptic representation of the stimulus to neighboring cortical area [8,10]. Traveling waves were reported in the visual cortices of ferrets and turtles [11,20,21]. These waves traveled across the border of different visual areas, probably mediated by long range cortico-cortical connections. The inter-cortical wave-like activity may serve as a means of communication between different areas [11,22]
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