Sensory experience and learning are thought to be associated with plasticity of neocortical circuits. Repetitive sensory stimulation can induce long-term potentiation (LTP) of cortical excitatory synapses in anesthetized mice; however, it is unclear if these phenomena are associated with sustained changes in activity during wakefulness. Here we used time-lapse, calcium imaging of layer (L) 2/3 neurons in the primary somatosensory cortex (S1), in awake male mice, to assess the effects of a bout of rhythmic whisker stimulation (RWS) at a frequency by which rodents sample objects. We found that RWS induced a 1h-increase in whisker-evoked L2/3 neuronal activity in most cells. This was not observed for whiskers functionally connected to distant cortical columns. We also found that RWS could heterogeneously recruit or suppress whisker-evoked activity in different populations of neurons. Vasoactive intestinal-peptide-expressing (VIP) interneurons, which promote plasticity through disinhibition of pyramidal neurons, were found to exclusively elevate activity during RWS. These findings indicate that cortical neurons' representation of sensory input can be modulated over hours through repetitive sensory stimulation, which may be gated by activation of disinhibitory circuits.Significance statement Sensory experience and learning are thought to be associated with the plasticity of cortical synaptic circuits. Here, we tested how repeated sensory stimulation changes subsequent sensory-evoked responses, using the mouse somatosensory cortex as a model. This cortical area processes, among others, sensory information from the whiskers. We found that rhythmic whisker stimulation potentiated excitatory neuronal activity for an hour, and identified a disinhibitory interneuron-mediated mechanism that could gate this plasticity. This work increases our understanding of sensory learning and experience-dependent plasticity processes by demonstrating that cortical representations of sensory input are dynamic and are effectively modulated by repeated sensory stimulation.

中文翻译：

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重复的感觉刺激增强并募集感觉诱发的皮层群体活动。


感觉体验和学习被认为与新皮层回路的可塑性有关。重复感觉刺激可诱导麻醉小鼠皮质兴奋性突触的长期增强 （LTP）;然而，目前尚不清楚这些现象是否与清醒期间活动的持续变化有关。在这里，我们使用清醒雄性小鼠初级体感皮层 （S1） 中第 （L） 2/3 层神经元的延时钙成像来评估一轮有节奏的胡须刺激 （RWS） 对啮齿动物采样物体的频率的影响。我们发现 RWS 在大多数细胞中诱导晶须诱发的 L2/3 神经元活性增加 1 小时。对于功能上连接到远处皮质柱的胡须，没有观察到这一点。我们还发现 RWS 可以在不同的神经元群中异质性地募集或抑制胡须诱发的活动。血管活性肠肽表达 （VIP） 中间神经元通过去抑制锥体神经元来促进可塑性，被发现仅在 RWS 期间提高活性。这些发现表明，皮层神经元对感觉输入的表征可以通过重复的感觉刺激在数小时内进行调节，这可能通过激活抑制回路来控制。意义陈述 感觉体验和学习被认为与皮质突触回路的可塑性有关。在这里，我们使用小鼠体感皮层作为模型，测试了重复的感觉刺激如何改变随后的感觉诱发反应。这个皮质区域处理来自胡须的感觉信息等。 我们发现有节奏的晶须刺激增强了兴奋性神经元活动一小时，并确定了一种可以控制这种可塑性的去抑制性中间神经元介导的机制。这项工作通过证明感觉输入的皮层表征是动态的并且受到重复感觉刺激的有效调节，增加了我们对感觉学习和经验依赖性可塑性过程的理解。