Data from: Thalamic bursting and the role of timing and synchrony in thalamocortical signaling in the awake mouse

The thalamus controls transmission of sensory signals from periphery to
cortex, ultimately shaping perception. Despite this significant role,
dynamic thalamic gating and the consequences for downstream cortical
sensory representations have not been well studied in the awake brain. We
optogenetically modulated the ventro-posterior medial thalamus in the
vibrissa pathway of the awake mouse, and measured spiking activity in the
thalamus, and activity in primary somatosensory cortex (S1) using
extracellular electrophysiology and genetically encoded voltage imaging.
Thalamic hyperpolarization significantly enhanced thalamic sensory-evoked
bursting, yet surprisingly the S1 cortical response was not amplified, but
instead timing precision was significantly increased, spatial activation
more focused, and there was an increased synchronization of cortical
inhibitory neurons. A thalamocortical network model implicates the
modulation of precise timing of feedforward thalamic population spiking,
presenting a highly sensitive, timing-based gating of sensory signaling to
cortex.