title: Network Homeostasis and State Dynamics of Neocortical Sleep.
abstract: Sleep exerts many effects on mammalian forebrain networks, including homeostatic effects on both synaptic strengths and firing rates. We used large-scale recordings to examine the activity of neurons in the frontal cortex of rats and first observed that the distribution of pyramidal cell firing rates was wide and strongly skewed toward high firing rates. Moreover, neurons from different parts of that distribution were differentially modulated by sleep substates. Periods of nonREM sleep reduced the activity of high firing rate neurons and tended to upregulate firing of slow-firing neurons. By contrast, the effect of REM was to reduce firing rates across the entire rate spectrum. Microarousals, interspersed within nonREM epochs, increased firing rates of slow-firing neurons. The net result of sleep was to homogenize the firing rate distribution. These findings are at variance with current homeostatic models and provide a novel view of sleep in adjusting network excitability.
authors.affiliation: New York University Neuroscience Institute, New York University, New York, NY 10016, USA; Department of Psychiatry, Weill Cornell Medical College, New York, NY 10065, USA.
authors.forename: Brendon O
authors.initials: BO
authors.lastname: Watson
authors.affiliation: New York University Neuroscience Institute, New York University, New York, NY 10016, USA; Center for Neural Science, New York University, New York, NY 10016, USA.
authors.forename: Daniel
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Levenstein
authors.affiliation: New York University Neuroscience Institute, New York University, New York, NY 10016, USA.
authors.forename: J Palmer
authors.initials: JP
authors.lastname: Greene
authors.affiliation: New York University Neuroscience Institute, New York University, New York, NY 10016, USA.
authors.forename: Jennifer N
authors.initials: JN
authors.lastname: Gelinas
authors.affiliation: New York University Neuroscience Institute, New York University, New York, NY 10016, USA; Center for Neural Science, New York University, New York, NY 10016, USA. Electronic address: gyorgy.buzsaki@nyumc.org.
authors.forename: György
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Buzsáki
mesh_terms: D000200:Action Potentials / Q000502:physiology*; D000818:Animals; D006706:Homeostasis / Q000502:physiology*; D008297:Male; D019579:Neocortex / Q000502:physiology*; D009474:Neurons / Q000502:physiology; D020318:Rats, Long-Evans; D012890:Sleep / Q000502:physiology*; D009435:Synaptic Transmission / Q000502:physiology; D014851:Wakefulness / Q000502:physiology