title: GABAergic Neurons in Ferret Visual Cortex Participate in Functionally Specific Networks.
abstract: Functional circuits in the visual cortex require the coordinated activity of excitatory and inhibitory neurons. Molecular genetic approaches in the mouse have led to the "local non-specific pooling principle" of inhibitory connectivity, in which inhibitory neurons are untuned for stimulus features due to the random pooling of local inputs. However, it remains unclear whether this principle generalizes to species with a columnar organization of feature selectivity such as carnivores, primates, and humans. Here we use virally mediated GABAergic-specific GCaMP6f expression to demonstrate that inhibitory neurons in ferret visual cortex respond robustly and selectively to oriented stimuli. We find that the tuning of inhibitory neurons is inconsistent with the local non-specific pooling of excitatory inputs and that inhibitory neurons exhibit orientation-specific noise correlations with local and distant excitatory neurons. These findings challenge the generality of the non-specific pooling principle for inhibitory neurons, suggesting different rules for functional excitatory-inhibitory interactions in non-murine species.
authors.affiliation: Max Planck Florida Institute for Neuroscience, Jupiter, FL 33458, USA; Integrative Biology and Neuroscience Graduate Program, Florida Atlantic University, Jupiter, FL 33458, USA; International Max Planck Research School for Brain and Behavior, Florida Atlantic University, Jupiter, FL 33458, USA.
authors.forename: Daniel E
authors.initials: DE
authors.lastname: Wilson
authors.affiliation: Max Planck Florida Institute for Neuroscience, Jupiter, FL 33458, USA.
authors.forename: Gordon B
authors.initials: GB
authors.lastname: Smith
authors.affiliation: Max Planck Florida Institute for Neuroscience, Jupiter, FL 33458, USA.
authors.forename: Amanda L
authors.initials: AL
authors.lastname: Jacob
authors.affiliation: Max Planck Florida Institute for Neuroscience, Jupiter, FL 33458, USA.
authors.forename: Theo
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Walker
authors.affiliation: NYU Neuroscience Institute, New York University Langone Medical Center, New York, NY 10016, USA; Center for Genomics & Systems Biology, New York University, Abu Dhabi, UAE.
authors.forename: Jordane
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Dimidschstein
authors.affiliation: NYU Neuroscience Institute, New York University Langone Medical Center, New York, NY 10016, USA; Center for Genomics & Systems Biology, New York University, Abu Dhabi, UAE.
authors.forename: Gord
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Fishell
authors.affiliation: Max Planck Florida Institute for Neuroscience, Jupiter, FL 33458, USA. Electronic address: david.fitzpatrick@mpfi.org.
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Fitzpatrick
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001931:Brain Mapping; D005260:Female; D005289:Ferrets; D059330:GABAergic Neurons / Q000502:physiology*; D009415:Nerve Net / Q000502:physiology*; D009433:Neural Inhibition / Q000502:physiology; D059906:Neuroimaging / Q000379:methods; D009949:Orientation / Q000502:physiology; D013569:Synapses / Q000502:physiology*; D014793:Visual Cortex / Q000502:physiology*
keywords: GABA; Visual cortex; excitatory neurons; ferret; inhibitory neurons; orientation selectivity; parvalbumin; somatostatin