title: Long-term modification of cortical synapses improves sensory perception.
abstract: Synapses and receptive fields of the cerebral cortex are plastic. However, changes to specific inputs must be coordinated within neural networks to ensure that excitability and feature selectivity are appropriately configured for perception of the sensory environment. We induced long-lasting enhancements and decrements to excitatory synaptic strength in rat primary auditory cortex by pairing acoustic stimuli with activation of the nucleus basalis neuromodulatory system. Here we report that these synaptic modifications were approximately balanced across individual receptive fields, conserving mean excitation while reducing overall response variability. Decreased response variability should increase detection and recognition of near-threshold or previously imperceptible stimuli. We confirmed both of these hypotheses in behaving animals. Thus, modification of cortical inputs leads to wide-scale synaptic changes, which are related to improved sensory perception and enhanced behavioral performance.
authors.affiliation: Molecular Neurobiology Program, The Helen and Martin Kimmel Center for Biology and Medicine at the Skirball Institute for Biomolecular Medicine, Department of Physiology and Neuroscience, New York University School of Medicine, New York, New York, USA. robert.froemke@med.nyu.edu
authors.forename: Robert C
authors.initials: RC
authors.lastname: Froemke
authors.forename: Ioana
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Carcea
authors.forename: Alison J
authors.initials: AJ
authors.lastname: Barker
authors.forename: Kexin
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Yuan
authors.forename: Bryan A
authors.initials: BA
authors.lastname: Seybold
authors.forename: Ana Raquel O
authors.initials: AR
authors.lastname: Martins
authors.forename: Natalya
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Zaika
authors.forename: Hannah
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Bernstein
authors.forename: Megan
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Wachs
authors.forename: Philip A
authors.initials: PA
authors.lastname: Levis
authors.forename: Daniel B
authors.initials: DB
authors.lastname: Polley
authors.forename: Michael M
authors.initials: MM
authors.lastname: Merzenich
authors.forename: Christoph E
authors.initials: CE
authors.lastname: Schreiner
mesh_terms: D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D000777:Anesthetics / Q000494:pharmacology; D000818:Animals; D001303:Auditory Cortex / Q000166:cytology*; D001307:Auditory Perception / Q000187:drug effects / Q000502:physiology*; D020532:Basal Nucleus of Meynert / Q000166:cytology; D001703:Biophysics; D001931:Brain Mapping; D003198:Computer Simulation; D019706:Excitatory Postsynaptic Potentials / Q000502:physiology; D005260:Female; D005508:Food Deprivation; D008959:Models, Neurological; D009474:Neurons / Q000502:physiology*; D017711:Nonlinear Dynamics; D018408:Patch-Clamp Techniques; D011571:Psychoacoustics; D017207:Rats, Sprague-Dawley; D021641:Recognition, Psychology; D017603:Signal Detection, Psychological; D018709:Statistics, Nonparametric; D013569:Synapses / Q000502:physiology*
chemical_list: D000777:Anesthetics