Decorrelation of sensory-evoked neuronal responses in rat barrel cortex during postnatal development

摘要: a b s t r c The ability to detect and discriminate sensory stimuli greatly improves with age. To better understand the neural basis of perceptual development, we studied postnatal development responses in cortical neurons. Specifically, analyzed neuronal single-whisker deflections pos- teromedial barrel subfield (PMBSF) rat primary somatosensory cortex. Responses PMBSF neurons showed long onset latency duration first week, but became fast transient over next few weeks. Trial-by-trial variations single neuron did not change systematically age, whereas covariation across trials between (noise correlation) was high on day 5-6 (P5-6), gradually decreased age near zero by P30-31. Computational analyses that pooled multiple more reliable stimulus period which these changes occurred corresponds when rats develop full set exploratory whisking behavior. We suggest reduced noise correlation population neurons, addition sharpening temporal characteristics responses, may help improve behavioral performance.