Data from: Auditory sensory processing induces cortical and thalamic event-related desynchronization in the mouse

Studies of human perception have shown early cortical signals for primary
information encoding, and later signals for higher order processing. An
important late signal is the cortical event-related desynchronization
(ERD) in the alpha (8-12Hz) and beta (12-30Hz) frequency band, which has
been linked to human perceptual awareness. Detailed mechanistic
investigation of the ERD would be greatly facilitated by availability of a
suitable animal model. We conducted local field potential recordings in
the mouse frontal association cortex (FrA), thalamic intralaminar
centrolateral nucleus (CL), primary auditory cortex (A1), and primary
visual cortex (V1) during two auditory tasks. Fully audible brief 50 ms
stimuli with both tasks produced early broadband gamma (30-100Hz)
frequency activity at 0-250ms, followed by a late cortical alpha/beta ERD
250 – 750 ms after stimulus onset. The ERD was statistically significant
in FrA and A1, but not in V1. Interestingly, a significant ERD was also
observed in thalamic CL. The magnitude of the ERD at full stimulus
intensity, and the slope of the relationship between stimulus intensity
versus ERD magnitude, were both largest in FrA, and smaller in CL and A1.
Conversely, for early broadband gamma activity the magnitude at full
intensity and slopes were largest in A1, smaller in CL and smaller still
in FrA. These findings strongly support mice as a promising platform for
further investigation of the ERD to better understand the origin and
function of this robust yet understudied electrophysiological phenomenon.