RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Transient network synchrony of the developing medial entorhinal cortex
JF bioRxiv
FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
SP 121459
DO 10.1101/121459
A1 Julia Dawitz
A1 J.J. Johannes Hjorth
A1 Tim Kroon
A1 Marta Ruiperez-Alonso
A1 Nandakumar Chandrasekhar
A1 Henrike Hartung
A1 Ileana L. Hanganu-Opatz
A1 Huibert D. Mansvelder
A1 Rhiannon M. Meredith
YR 2017
UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2017/03/28/121459.abstract
AB The medial entorhinal cortex (MEC) contains a variety of specialized spatially-tuned neurons whose properties emerge during the third postnatal week onwards in rodents. How neuronal networks underlying the spatial firing patterns are formed is largely unknown but they are hypothesized to develop from topographic modules of synchronized neurons in superficial MEC. Here, we show that developing MEC neuronal networks in the second postnatal week are synchronously active in spatially-grouped modules. Network synchrony is intrinsic to MEC and desynchronized just prior to the emergence of spatially-tuned firing properties. The MEC network is modulated but not driven by the immature hippocampus and is tightly-coupled to neighboring neocortical networks. Unlike hippocampal networks, developing modules are dominated by glutamatergic excitation rather than GABAergic inhibition. Our results demonstrate that intrinsically synchronous modules exist in immature MEC: these may play a key role in establishing and organizing circuitry necessary for spatially-tuned firing properties of MEC neurons.