1. A thalamocortical top-down circuit for associative memory
- Author
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Henning Sprekeler, Teresa Spanò, Johannes J. Letzkus, M. Belén Pardi, Friedrich Kretschmer, De-Lin Pu, Laura Bella Naumann, Johanna Vogenstahl, and Tamas Dalmay
- Subjects
Patch-Clamp Techniques ,Computer science ,Thalamus ,Neocortex ,Sensory system ,Optogenetics ,Auditory cortex ,Mice ,03 medical and health sciences ,0302 clinical medicine ,Calcium imaging ,Memory ,Neural Pathways ,medicine ,Animals ,030304 developmental biology ,Auditory Cortex ,0303 health sciences ,Multidisciplinary ,Association Learning ,Content-addressable memory ,Associative learning ,Mice, Inbred C57BL ,medicine.anatomical_structure ,Synapses ,Neuroscience ,030217 neurology & neurosurgery - Abstract
Higher-order thalamus input to the cortex Sensory information can only be used meaningfully in the brain when integrated with and compared with internally generated top-down signals. However, we know little about the brainwide afferents that convey such top-down signals, their information content, and learning-related plasticity. Pardi et al. identified the higher-order thalamus as a major source of top-down input to mouse auditory cortex and investigated a circuit in cortical layer 1 that facilitates plastic changes and flexible responses. These results demonstrate how top-down feedback information can reach cortical areas through a noncortical structure that has received little attention despite its widespread connections with the cortex. Science , this issue p. 844
- Published
- 2020