Event Abstract Back to Event High speed imaging of feed-forward networks in the rat and human cortex Gábor Molnár1*, Sándor Lovas1, Pál Barzó1 and Gábor Tamás1 1 University of Szeged, Research Group for Cortical Microcircuits of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Department of Physiology, Anatomy and Neuroscience, Hungary Neurons form functionally linked assemblies in the cortex and astrocytes actively interact with neurons in network operations, but the spatiotemporal properties of these functional cell groups are poorly understood. We used high speed spinning disk confocal microscopy combined with whole cells recordings to analyze network activation properties in layers 2/3 of brain slices prepared from human and rat cortex. Oregon green BAPTA-1 AM was used as calcium dye penetrating into neurons as well as astrocytes and slices were co-loaded with sulforhodamine 101 to identify astrocytes. Higher resting calcium levels and longer lasting, slower rising calcium transient dynamics set apart astrocytes from neurons allowing identification of these cell types during network imaging. Calcium imaging of the network revealed spontaneously occurring population responses composed of temporally grouped calcium transients in a group of spatially associated cells comprising neurons and astrocytes in the vicinity (<300 μm) of one another. High temporal resolution imaging revealed an activation chain of calcium transients in a focal network of neurons and astrocytes starting with neuronal activation rapidly followed by astroglial responses and ending with a second wave of slower events in neighboring neurons and astrocytes. Moreover, we identified spontaneously occurring up and down states in human and rat neurons and confirmed that individual pyramidal neurons and axo-axonic cells are capable of triggering neuronal network events. Our experiments show that both neurons and astrocytes participate in functional cell assemblies of the neocortex and reveal a reverberation in cortical networks involving stereotyped activation sequences of neurons and glial cells. Conference: IBRO International Workshop 2010, Pécs, Hungary, 21 Jan - 23 Jan, 2010. Presentation Type: Poster Presentation Topic: Cellular neuroscience Citation: Molnár G, Lovas S, Barzó P and Tamás G (2010). High speed imaging of feed-forward networks in the rat and human cortex. Front. Neurosci. Conference Abstract: IBRO International Workshop 2010. doi: 10.3389/conf.fnins.2010.10.00094 Copyright: The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers. They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters. The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated. Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed. For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions. Received: 22 Apr 2010; Published Online: 22 Apr 2010. * Correspondence: Gábor Molnár, University of Szeged, Research Group for Cortical Microcircuits of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Department of Physiology, Anatomy and Neuroscience, Szeged, Hungary, molnarg@bio.u-szeged.hu Login Required This action requires you to be registered with Frontiers and logged in. To register or login click here. Abstract Info Abstract The Authors in Frontiers Gábor Molnár Sándor Lovas Pál Barzó Gábor Tamás Google Gábor Molnár Sándor Lovas Pál Barzó Gábor Tamás Google Scholar Gábor Molnár Sándor Lovas Pál Barzó Gábor Tamás PubMed Gábor Molnár Sándor Lovas Pál Barzó Gábor Tamás Related Article in Frontiers Google Scholar PubMed Abstract Close Back to top Javascript is disabled. Please enable Javascript in your browser settings in order to see all the content on this page.