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A new mode of corticothalamic transmission revealed in the Gria4(-/-) model of absence epilepsy NATURE NEUROSCIENCE Paz, J. T., Bryant, A. S., Peng, K., Fenno, L., Yizhar, O., Frankel, W. N., Deisseroth, K., Huguenard, J. R. 2011; 14 (9): 1167-U225

Abstract

Cortico-thalamo-cortical circuits mediate sensation and generate neural network oscillations associated with slow-wave sleep and various epilepsies. Cortical input to sensory thalamus is thought to mainly evoke feed-forward synaptic inhibition of thalamocortical (TC) cells via reticular thalamic nucleus (nRT) neurons, especially during oscillations. This relies on a stronger synaptic strength in the cortico-nRT pathway than in the cortico-TC pathway, allowing the feed-forward inhibition of TC cells to overcome direct cortico-TC excitation. We found a systemic and specific reduction in strength in GluA4-deficient (Gria4(-/-)) mice of one excitatory synapse of the rhythmogenic cortico-thalamo-cortical system, the cortico-nRT projection, and observed that the oscillations could still be initiated by cortical inputs via the cortico-TC-nRT-TC pathway. These results reveal a previously unknown mode of cortico-thalamo-cortical transmission, bypassing direct cortico-nRT excitation, and describe a mechanism for pathological oscillation generation. This mode could be active under other circumstances, representing a previously unknown channel of cortico-thalamo-cortical information processing.

View details for DOI 10.1038/nn.2896

View details for Web of Science ID 000294284900017

View details for PubMedID 21857658

View details for PubMedCentralID PMC3308017