Inhibitory Thalamic Reticular Nucleus Drives Frequency Specific Brain-wide Responses

Abstract

Thalamic inhibition from thalamic reticular nucleus has been shown to provide critical gating upon thalamo-cortical interactions and exert selective modulation on information processing according to behavioral demands. However, where and how thalamic reticular nucleus exerts control of brain-wide neural activities over different spatial and temporal scales remained unclear. In this study, we demonstrate for the first time the frequency specific brain-wide responses driven by inhibitory somatosensory thalamic reticular nucleus using optogenetic fMRI. Such frequency specific engagements of brain-wide neural activities could underlie selective modulation of local circuits versus global networks in different brain functions.