A neuron model with unbalanced synaptic weights explains the asymmetric effects of anaesthesia on the auditory cortex

  • Substantial progress in the field of neuroscience has been made from anaesthetized preparations. Ketamine is one of the most used drugs in electrophysiology studies, but how ketamine affects neuronal responses is poorly understood. Here, we used in vivo electrophysiology and computational modelling to study how the auditory cortex of bats responds to vocalisations under anaesthesia and in wakefulness. In wakefulness, acoustic context increases neuronal discrimination of natural sounds. Neuron models predicted that ketamine affects the contextual discrimination of sounds regardless of the type of context heard by the animals (echolocation or communication sounds). However, empirical evidence showed that the predicted effect of ketamine occurs only if the acoustic context consists of low-pitched sounds (e.g., communication calls in bats). Using the empirical data, we updated the naïve models to show that differential effects of ketamine on cortical responses can be mediated by unbalanced changes in the firing rate of feedforward inputs to cortex, and changes in the depression of thalamo-cortical synaptic receptors. Combined, our findings obtained in vivo and in silico reveal the effects and mechanisms by which ketamine affects cortical responses to vocalisations.

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Author:Luciana López JuryORCiDGND, Francisco García RosalesORCiDGND, Eugenia González PalomaresORCiD, Johannes WetekamORCiD, Michael PasekORCiD, Julio C. HechavarriaORCiDGND
URN:urn:nbn:de:hebis:30:3-835054
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3002013
ISSN:1545-7885
Parent Title (English):PLOS biology
Publisher:PLoS
Place of publication:Lawrence, KS
Document Type:Article
Language:English
Date of Publication (online):2023/02/21
Date of first Publication:2023/02/21
Publishing Institution:Universitätsbibliothek Johann Christian Senckenberg
Release Date:2024/04/03
Volume:21
Issue:2, art. e3002013
Article Number:e3002013
Page Number:35
HeBIS-PPN:520347013
Institutes:Physik / Physik
Biowissenschaften / Biowissenschaften
Dewey Decimal Classification:5 Naturwissenschaften und Mathematik / 57 Biowissenschaften; Biologie / 570 Biowissenschaften; Biologie
6 Technik, Medizin, angewandte Wissenschaften / 61 Medizin und Gesundheit / 610 Medizin und Gesundheit
Sammlungen:Universitätspublikationen
Licence (German):License LogoCreative Commons - Namensnennung 4.0