title: Decorrelated neuronal firing in cortical microcircuits.
abstract: Correlated trial-to-trial variability in the activity of cortical neurons is thought to reflect the functional connectivity of the circuit. Many cortical areas are organized into functional columns, in which neurons are believed to be densely connected and to share common input. Numerous studies report a high degree of correlated variability between nearby cells. We developed chronically implanted multitetrode arrays offering unprecedented recording quality to reexamine this question in the primary visual cortex of awake macaques. We found that even nearby neurons with similar orientation tuning show virtually no correlated variability. Our findings suggest a refinement of current models of cortical microcircuit architecture and function: Either adjacent neurons share only a few percent of their inputs or, alternatively, their activity is actively decorrelated.
authors.affiliation: Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, 72076 Tübingen, Germany.
authors.forename: Alexander S
authors.initials: AS
authors.lastname: Ecker
authors.forename: Philipp
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Berens
authors.forename: Georgios A
authors.initials: GA
authors.lastname: Keliris
authors.forename: Matthias
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Bethge
authors.forename: Nikos K
authors.initials: NK
authors.lastname: Logothetis
authors.forename: Andreas S
authors.initials: AS
authors.lastname: Tolias
mesh_terms: D000200:Action Potentials; D000818:Animals; D004567:Electrodes, Implanted; D008253:Macaca mulatta; D008959:Models, Neurological; D009415:Nerve Net / Q000502:physiology; D009474:Neurons / Q000502:physiology*; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D013569:Synapses / Q000502:physiology; D014793:Visual Cortex / Q000166:cytology / Q000502:physiology*; D014795:Visual Pathways / Q000502:physiology*