Department of Medicine, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, United States
Sylvain Chauvette
Department of Psychiatry and Neuroscience, Université Laval, Québec, Canada; Centre de Recherche de l’Institut Universitaire en Santé Mentale de Québec, Université Laval, Québec, Canada
Isaac Shamie
Departments of Radiology and Neurosciences, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, United States
Sara Soltani
Department of Psychiatry and Neuroscience, Université Laval, Québec, Canada; Centre de Recherche de l’Institut Universitaire en Santé Mentale de Québec, Université Laval, Québec, Canada
Igor Timofeev
Department of Psychiatry and Neuroscience, Université Laval, Québec, Canada; Centre de Recherche de l’Institut Universitaire en Santé Mentale de Québec, Université Laval, Québec, Canada
Sydney S Cash
Department of Neurology, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, United States
Eric Halgren
Departments of Radiology and Neurosciences, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, United States
Maxim Bazhenov
Department of Medicine, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, United States
The link between the combined action of neuromodulators in the brain and global brain states remains a mystery. In this study, using biophysically realistic models of the thalamocortical network, we identified the critical intrinsic and synaptic mechanisms, associated with the putative action of acetylcholine (ACh), GABA and monoamines, which lead to transitions between primary brain vigilance states (waking, non-rapid eye movement sleep [NREM] and REM sleep) within an ultradian cycle. Using ECoG recordings from humans and LFP recordings from cats and mice, we found that during NREM sleep the power of spindle and delta oscillations is negatively correlated in humans and positively correlated in animal recordings. We explained this discrepancy by the differences in the relative level of ACh. Overall, our study revealed the critical intrinsic and synaptic mechanisms through which different neuromodulators acting in combination result in characteristic brain EEG rhythms and transitions between sleep stages.
