Modularity Induced Gating and Delays in Neuronal Networks.
Neural networks, despite their highly interconnected nature, exhibit distinctly localized and gated activation. Modularity, a distinctive feature of neural networks, has been recently proposed as an important parameter determining the manner by which networks support activity propagation. Here we use an engineered biological model, consisting of engineered rat cortical neurons, to study the role of modular topology in gating the activity between cell populations. We show that pairs of connected modules support conditional propagation (transmitting stronger bursts with higher probability), long delays and propagation asymmetry. Moreover, large modular networks manifest diverse patterns of both local and global activation. Blocking inhibition decreased activity diversity and replaced it with highly consistent transmission patterns. By independently controlling modularity and disinhibition, experimentally and in a model, we pose that modular topology is an important parameter affecting activation localization and is instrumental for population-level gating by disinhibition.
School of Electrical Engineering, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel.|Tel Aviv University Center for Nanoscience and Nanotechnology, Tel Aviv, Israel.|Max Planck Institute for Brain Research, Frankfurt am Main, Germany.
Mark
M
Shein-Idelson
School of Electrical Engineering, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel.|Tel Aviv University Center for Nanoscience and Nanotechnology, Tel Aviv, Israel.
Gilad
G
Cohen
Tel Aviv University Center for Nanoscience and Nanotechnology, Tel Aviv, Israel.|School of Physics and Astronomy, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel.|Sagol School of Neuroscience, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel.
Eshel
E
Ben-Jacob
School of Electrical Engineering, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel.|Tel Aviv University Center for Nanoscience and Nanotechnology, Tel Aviv, Israel.|Sagol School of Neuroscience, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel.
Yael
Y
Hanein
D000818:Animals; D057005:Bioengineering; D002450:Cell Communication / Q000502:physiology; D002478:Cells, Cultured; D019295:Computational Biology; D003198:Computer Simulation; D055724:Electrophysiological Phenomena; D066298:In Vitro Techniques; D008959:Models, Neurological; D009415:Nerve Net / Q000502:physiology*; D009474:Neurons / Q000502:physiology; D051381:Rats; D009435:Synaptic Transmission / Q000502:physiology