Mapping brain state-dependent sensory responses across the mouse cortex
Elena Montagni,
Francesco Resta,
Núria Tort-Colet,
Alessandro Scaglione,
Giacomo Mazzamuto,
Alain Destexhe,
Francesco Saverio Pavone,
Anna Letizia Allegra Mascaro
Affiliations
Elena Montagni
European Laboratory for Non-Linear Spectroscopy (LENS), Sesto Fiorentino, Italy; Neuroscience Institute, National Research Council, Pisa, Italy; Corresponding author
Francesco Resta
European Laboratory for Non-Linear Spectroscopy (LENS), Sesto Fiorentino, Italy; National Institute of Optics, National Research Council, Sesto Fiorentino, Italy
Núria Tort-Colet
Paris-Saclay University, CNRS, Institut des Neurosciences (NeuroPSI), Saclay, France; Barcelonaβ Brain Research Center, Barcelona, Spain; Hospital del Mar Medical Research Institute, Barcelona, Spain
Alessandro Scaglione
European Laboratory for Non-Linear Spectroscopy (LENS), Sesto Fiorentino, Italy; Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Florence, Sesto Fiorentino, Italy
Giacomo Mazzamuto
European Laboratory for Non-Linear Spectroscopy (LENS), Sesto Fiorentino, Italy; National Institute of Optics, National Research Council, Sesto Fiorentino, Italy; Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Florence, Sesto Fiorentino, Italy
Alain Destexhe
Paris-Saclay University, CNRS, Institut des Neurosciences (NeuroPSI), Saclay, France
Francesco Saverio Pavone
European Laboratory for Non-Linear Spectroscopy (LENS), Sesto Fiorentino, Italy; National Institute of Optics, National Research Council, Sesto Fiorentino, Italy; Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Florence, Sesto Fiorentino, Italy
Anna Letizia Allegra Mascaro
European Laboratory for Non-Linear Spectroscopy (LENS), Sesto Fiorentino, Italy; Neuroscience Institute, National Research Council, Pisa, Italy; Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Florence, Sesto Fiorentino, Italy; Corresponding author
Summary: Sensory information must be integrated across a distributed brain network for stimulus processing and perception. Recent studies have revealed specific spatiotemporal patterns of cortical activation for the early and late components of sensory-evoked responses, which are associated with stimulus features and perception, respectively. Here, we investigated how the brain state influences the sensory-evoked activation across the mouse cortex. We utilized isoflurane to modulate the brain state and conducted wide-field calcium imaging of Thy1-GCaMP6f mice to monitor distributed activation evoked by multi-whisker stimulation. Our findings reveal that the level of anesthesia strongly shapes the spatiotemporal features and the functional connectivity of the sensory-activated network. As anesthesia levels decrease, we observe increasingly complex responses, accompanied by the emergence of the late component within the sensory-evoked response. The persistence of the late component under anesthesia raises new questions regarding the potential existence of perception during unconscious states.
