Mechanisms underlying spontaneous patterned activity in developing neural circuits

By A. Blankenship, M. Feller. 2009

811 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Patterned, spontaneous activity occurs in many developing neural circuits, including the retina, the cochlea, the spinal cord, the cerebellum and the hippocampus, where it provides signals that are important for the development of neurons and their connections. Despite there being differences in adult architecture and output across these various circuits, the patterns of spontaneous network activity and the mechanisms that generate it are remarkably similar. The mechanisms can include a depolarizing action of GABA (γ-aminobutyric acid), transient synaptic connections, extrasynaptic transmission, gap junction coupling and the presence of pacemaker-like neurons. Interestingly, spontaneous activity is robust; if one element of a circuit is disrupted another will generate similar activity. This research suggests that developing neural circuits exhibit transient and tunable features that maintain a source of correlated activity during crucial stages of development.

Subfields: Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience, Cognitive Neuroscience

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Citations in the corpus

Complex oscillatory waves emerging from cortical organoids model early human brain network development (2019, background): “These complex network dynamics emerge early in development and is unclear whether shaped exclusively by biological programming prenatally (Blankenship and Feller, 2010; Johnson, 2001; Power et al., 2010).”
Role of emergent neural activity in visual map development (2013, neutral): “For more information about the early role of genes or the later role of experience in visual development, we refer the reader to recent reviews on molecular signaling gradients, such as Eph/Ephrins for visual circuit development [4,5], as well as on the mechanisms by which patterned spontaneous acti”
A role for correlated spontaneous activity in the assembly of neural circuits (2013, positive): “Correlated spontaneous activity has been observed in several species, throughout the developing nervous system, including the retina, cochlea, spinal cord, cerebellum, hippocampus, and neocortex (Blankenship and Feller, 2010; Dehorter et al., 2012; Feldt et al., 2011; Moody and Bosma, 2005).”
Spontaneous network activity and synaptic development (2013, neutral): “Email: dkerschensteiner@wustl.edu”
Neurophysiological and Computational Principles of Cortical Rhythms in Cognition (2010, background): “tern formation of the developing brain (88, 289, 1082).”