Functional integration across a gradient of corticostriatal channels controls UP state transitions in the dorsal striatum

FERNANDO KASANETZ; LUIS A. RIQUELME, VALERIA DELLA-MAGGIORE, PATRICIO O'DONNELL, AND M. GUSTAVO MURER

PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

NATL ACAD SCIENCES

Lugar: Washington DC, USA; Año: 2008 vol. 105 p. 8124 - 8129

0027-8424

Coordinated near-threshold depolarized states in cortical and striatal neurons may contribute to form functionally segregated channels of information processing. Recent anatomical studies have identified pathways that could support spiraling interactions across corticostriatal channels, but a functional outcome of such spiraling remains to be identified. Here, we examined whether plateau depolarizations (UP states) in striatal neurons relate better to active epochs in local field potentials recorded from closely related cortical areas than to those recorded in less-related cortical areas. Our results show that, in anesthetized rats, the coordination between cortical areas and striatal regions obeys a mediolateral gradient and keeps track of slow wave trajectory across the neocortex. Moreover, activity in one cortical area induced phase advances in UP state onset and phase delays in UP state termination in nonmatching striatal regions, reflecting the existence of functional connections that could encode large-scale interactions between corticostriatal channels as subthreshold influences on striatal projection neurons.