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Multiregion neuronal activity: the forest and the trees

Nature Reviews Neuroscience volume 23, pages 683–704 (2022)Cite this article

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Abstract

The past decade has witnessed remarkable advances in the simultaneous measurement of neuronal activity across many brain regions, enabling fundamentally new explorations of the brain-spanning cellular dynamics that underlie sensation, cognition and action. These recently developed multiregion recording techniques have provided many experimental opportunities, but thoughtful consideration of methodological trade-offs is necessary, especially regarding field of view, temporal acquisition rate and ability to guarantee cellular resolution. When applied in concert with modern optogenetic and computational tools, multiregion recording has already made possible fundamental biological discoveries — in part via the unprecedented ability to perform unbiased neural activity screens for principles of brain function, spanning dozens of brain areas and from local to global scales.

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Fig. 1: A spectrum of methods for multiregion recording.
Fig. 2: Approaches for analysing multiregion recording data.
Fig. 3: New perspectives arising from multiregion recording.

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Acknowledgements

T.A.M. is supported by an NIH NINDS Pathway to Independence Award (K99/NS116122), an A.P. Giannini Fellowship and a Stanford School of Medicine Dean’s Fellowship. I.V.K. is a Merck Awardee of the Life Science Research Foundation and a Wu Tsai Stanford Neurosciences Institute Interdisciplinary Scholar. K.D. is supported by NIMH, NIDA, the NIH BRAIN Initiative, the National Science Foundation NeuroNex programme, the NOMIS Foundation, the Else Kröner Fresenius Foundation, the Gatsby Foundation and the AE Foundation. The authors also thank W. Allen, S. Bradbury, M. Inoue, C. Kim, J. Kochalka, B. Midler, A. Mitra, S. Quirin, E. Richman, S. Vesuna and other current and former members of the Deisseroth laboratory for valuable discussions.

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  1. These authors contributed equally: Timothy A. Machado, Isaac V. Kauvar.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Bioengineering, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA

    Timothy A. Machado, Isaac V. Kauvar & Karl Deisseroth

  2. Department of Electrical Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA

    Isaac V. Kauvar

  3. Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA

    Karl Deisseroth

  4. Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA

    Karl Deisseroth

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Machado, T.A., Kauvar, I.V. & Deisseroth, K. Multiregion neuronal activity: the forest and the trees. Nat Rev Neurosci 23, 683–704 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41583-022-00634-0

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