Frequency specific optogenetic recruitment of evoked responses in the somatosensory thalamocortical circuit

Abstract

Timing has been postulated as one of the most important aspects of information processing in the brain, and frequency is the most intuitive of the many timing parameters. Thalamocortical circuits present a good opportunity to comprehend the importance of timing due to their well-known relay pathways to the cortex in all sensory modalities. They have oscillations that are well characterized through multisite electrical recordings during wakefulness, sleep, anesthesia and task-driven activity. The advent of optogenetics coupled with fMRI enables an unprecedented opportunity to probe the dynamics of the somatosensory thalamocortical circuit of the rat in response to differing frequency stimulation.