Article

A dynamic causal model of the coupling between pulse stimulation and neural activity.

Centre for Signal Processing in Neuroimaging and Systems Neuroscience, Department of Psychology, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, South Yorkshire S102TN, UK.
Neural Computation (impact factor: 1.88). 08/2009; 21(10):2846-68. DOI:10.1162/neco.2009.07-08-820 pp.2846-68
Source: PubMed

ABSTRACT We present a dynamic causal model that can explain context-dependent changes in neural responses, in the rat barrel cortex, to an electrical whisker stimulation at different frequencies. Neural responses were measured in terms of local field potentials. These were converted into current source density (CSD) data, and the time series of the CSD sink was extracted to provide a time series response train. The model structure consists of three layers (approximating the responses from the brain stem to the thalamus and then the barrel cortex), and the latter two layers contain nonlinearly coupled modules of linear second-order dynamic systems. The interaction of these modules forms a nonlinear regulatory system that determines the temporal structure of the neural response amplitude for the thalamic and cortical layers. The model is based on the measured population dynamics of neurons rather than the dynamics of a single neuron and was evaluated against CSD data from experiments with varying stimulation frequency (1-40 Hz), random pulse trains, and awake and anesthetized animals. The model parameters obtained by optimization for different physiological conditions (anesthetized or awake) were significantly different. Following Friston, Mechelli, Turner, and Price (2000), this work is part of a formal mathematical system currently being developed (Zheng et al., 2005) that links stimulation to the blood oxygen level dependent (BOLD) functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) signal through neural activity and hemodynamic variables. The importance of the model described here is that it can be used to invert the hemodynamic measurements of changes in blood flow to estimate the underlying neural activity.

0 0
 · 
0 Bookmarks
 · 
56 Views
  • Source
    Article: Anatomically-constrained effective connectivity among layers in a cortical column modeled and estimated from local field potentials.
    Roberto C Sotero, Aleksandra Bortel, Ramón Martínez-Cancino, Sujaya Neupane, Peter O'Connor, Felix Carbonell, Amir Shmuel
    [show abstract] [hide abstract]
    ABSTRACT: We propose a neural mass model for anatomically-constrained effective connectivity among neuronal populations residing in four layers (L2/3, L4, L5 and L6) within a cortical column. Eight neuronal populations in a given column--an excitatory population and an inhibitory population per layer--are assumed to be coupled via effective connections of unknown strengths that need to be estimated. The effective connections are constrained to anatomical connections that have been shown to exist in previous anatomical studies. The neural input to a cortical column is directed into the two populations in L4. The anatomically-constrained effective connectivity is captured by a system of 16 stochastic differential equations. Solving these equations yields the average postsynaptic potentials and transmembrane currents generated in each population. The current source density (CSD) responses in each layer, which serve as the model observations, are equated in the model to the sum of all currents generated within that layer. The model is implemented in a continuous-discrete state-space framework, and the innovation method is used for estimating the model parameters from CSD data. To this end, local field potential (LFP) responses to forepaw stimulation were recorded in rat area S1 using multi-channel linear probes. LFPs were converted to CSD signals, which were averaged within each layer, yielding one CSD response per layer. To estimate the effective strengths of connections between all cortical layers, the model was fitted to these CSD signals. The results show that the pattern of effective interactions is strongly influenced by the pattern of strengths of the anatomical connections; however, these two patterns are not identical. The estimated anatomically-constrained effective connectivity matrix and the anatomical connectivity matrix shared five of their six strongest connections, although rankings according to connection strength differed. The strongest effective connections were from excitatory neurons in layer 4 to excitatory neurons in layer 2/3. Our study shows the feasibility of estimating anatomically-constrained effective connectivity within a cortical column, and indicates that there is a strong influence of anatomical connectivity on effective connectivity between cortical layers.
    Journal of Integrative Neuroscience 12/2010; 9(4):355-79. · 0.76 Impact Factor
Data provided are for informational purposes only. Although carefully collected, accuracy cannot be guaranteed. The impact factor represents a rough estimation of the journal's impact factor and does not reflect the actual current impact factor. Publisher conditions are provided by RoMEO. Differing provisions from the publisher's actual policy or licence agreement may be applicable.

Keywords

anesthetized animals
 
barrel cortex
 
context-dependent changes
 
cortical layers
 
CSD data
 
dynamic causal model
 
electrical whisker stimulation
 
links stimulation
 
measured population dynamics
 
model parameters
 
model structure
 
modules forms
 
neural response amplitude
 
random pulse trains
 
rat barrel cortex
 
temporal structure
 
time series
 
time series response train
 
two layers
 
underlying neural activity