Elsevier

Neuroscience Letters

Volume 401, Issue 3, 3 July 2006, Pages 280-284
Neuroscience Letters

Electrical stimulation of locus coeruleus strengthens the surround inhibition in layer V barrel cortex in rat

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neulet.2006.03.034Get rights and content

Abstract

It is believed that locus coeruleus (LC) influences the sensory information processing. However, its role in cortical surround inhibitory mechanism is not well established. In this experiment, using controlled mechanical displacement of whiskers; we investigated the effect of electrical stimulation of LC on response of layer V barrel cortical neurons in anesthetized rat. LC was stimulated 0, 50, 100, 200 and 400 ms before principal or adjacent whiskers deflection. For assessing the effect of LC stimulation on inhibitory receptive filed of barrel neurons, adjacent whisker was also deflected 20 ms before principal whisker deflection, and LC stimulation was applied 0–400 ms before principal whisker displacement. We found that LC stimulation increase the response magnitude of layer V neurons to principal whisker deflection (significant in 50–400 ms intervals). This increase was also observed in response to adjacent whisker deflection (significant in 100 ms interval). The response latency of neurons was decreased when LC was stimulated 400 ms before principal whisker deflection but LC stimulation did not affect the neuronal response latency to adjacent whisker displacement. Inhibitory effect of adjacent whisker deflection on neuronal response magnitude was increased by LC stimulation, tested in combined whisker displacement. These findings suggest that LC, by modulating the neuronal responses, enhances the neuronal responsiveness to sensory stimuli and increases their surround inhibition in cortex.

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Acknowledgements

This experiment were supported by Kerman Neuroscience Research Center, Kerman University of Medical Sciences and Kerman Management and Planning Organization. We thank Dr. Mohsen Reza Haidary for assistance with English editing of the manuscript.

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      Further studies investigating the effects of LC activation on somatosensory signal processing confirm and extend many of the above findings. Motaghi et al. (2006) have shown that electrical stimulation of LC increases the magnitude of layer V barrel field cortical neuron excitatory responses to individual whisker deflection and strengthens surround inhibition, a powerful combination of effects that can focus excitatory synaptic drive to cortical neurons and sharpen their receptive field borders. Fazlali and colleagues (2016) have provided evidence linking LC spontaneous firing rate to cortical activation, i.e. high frequency, low amplitude waveforms within EEG recordings that are associated with alert brain states and higher order cognitive processing.

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