Interaction of electrically evoked activity with intrinsic dynamics of cultured cortical networks with and without functional fast GABAergic synaptic transmission

Myasthenia Gravis-An Analysis of Multimodal Evoked Potentials

INTRODUCTION

The aim of this study is a comprehensive analysis of the parameters of exogenous evoked potentials (visual, brainstem auditory, and somatosensory) in patients with myasthenia gravis (MG), a prototype of both neuromuscular junction disease and autoimmune disease. The study also seeks to isolate electrophysiological changes that may indicate disorders within the central and/or peripheral nervous system.

METHODS

A total of forty-two consecutive patients with myasthenia gravis (24 women, 18 men) were included in the study. All of the patients underwent EP examination. MR images were also analyzed.

RESULTS

In the group of MG patients, the latency of P100 (113.9 ± 13.9; p < 0.0001) VEP, wave III (3.92 ± 0.29; p = 0.015), wave V (5.93 ± 0.32; <0.0001), interlatency III-V (2.00 ± 0.12; p < 0.0001), interlatency I-V (4.20 ± 0.28; p < 0.001) BAEP, and all components of SEP (N9, P10, N13, P16, N20, P22) were significantly longer. Mean wave I and V amplitude BAEP were relatively lower.

CONCLUSIONS

The results of the study suggest the presence of disturbances in the bioelectric activities of the central and peripheral nervous system in MG patients.

The Structural E/I Balance Constrains the Early Development of Cortical Network Activity

Neocortical networks have a characteristic constant ratio in the number of glutamatergic projection neurons (PN) and GABAergic interneurons (IN), and deviations in this ratio are often associated with developmental neuropathologies. Cultured networks with defined cellular content allowed us to ask if initial PN/IN ratios change the developmental population dynamics, and how different ratios impact the physiological excitatory/inhibitory (E/I) balance and the network activity development. During the first week in vitro, the IN content modulated PN numbers, increasing their proliferation in networks with higher IN proportions. The proportion of INs in each network set remained similar to the initial plating ratio during the 4 weeks cultivation period. Results from additional networks generated with more diverse cellular composition, including early-born GABA neurons, suggest that a GABA-dependent mechanism may decrease the survival of additional INs. A large variation of the PN/IN ratio did not change the balance between isolated spontaneous glutamatergic and GABAergic postsynaptic currents charge transfer (E/I balance) measured in PNs or INs. In contrast, the E/I balance of multisynaptic bursts reflected differences in IN content. Additionally, the spontaneous activity recorded by calcium imaging showed that higher IN ratios were associated with increased frequency of network bursts combined with a decrease of participating neurons per event. In the 4th week in vitro, bursting activity was stereotypically synchronized in networks with very few INs but was more desynchronized in networks with higher IN proportions. These results suggest that the E/I balance of isolated postsynaptic currents in single cells may be regulated independently of PN/IN proportions, but the network bursts E/I balance and the maturation of spontaneous network activity critically depends upon the structural PN/IN ratio.

Unique Features of Network Bursts Emerge From the Complex Interplay of Excitatory and Inhibitory Receptors in Rat Neocortical Networks

Spontaneous network activity plays a fundamental role in the formation of functional networks during early development. The landmark of this activity is the recurrent emergence of intensive time-limited network bursts (NBs) rapidly spreading across the entire dissociated culture in vitro. The main excitatory mediators of NBs are glutamatergic alpha-amino-3-hydroxy-5-methyl-4-isoxazolepropionic acid receptors (AMPARs) and N-Methyl-D-aspartic-acid receptors (NMDARs) that express fast and slow ion channel kinetics, respectively. The fast inhibition of the activity is mediated through gamma-aminobutyric acid type A receptors (GABA_ARs). Although the AMPAR, NMDAR and GABA_AR kinetics have been biophysically characterized in detail at the monosynaptic level in a variety of brain areas, the unique features of NBs emerging from the kinetics and the complex interplay of these receptors are not well understood. The goal of this study is to analyze the contribution of fast GABA_ARs on AMPAR- and NMDAR- mediated spontaneous NB activity in dissociated neonatal rat cortical cultures at 3 weeks in vitro. The networks were probed by both acute and gradual application of each excitatory receptor antagonist and combinations of acute excitatory and inhibitory receptor antagonists. At the same time, the extracellular network-wide activity was recorded with microelectrode arrays (MEAs). We analyzed the characteristic NB measures extracted from NB rate profiles and the distributions of interspike intervals, interburst intervals, and electrode recruitment time as well as the similarity of spatio-temporal patterns of network activity under different receptor antagonists. We show that NBs were rapidly initiated and recruited as well as diversely propagated by AMPARs and temporally and spatially maintained by NMDARs. GABA_ARs reduced the spiking frequency in AMPAR-mediated networks and dampened the termination of NBs in NMDAR-mediated networks as well as slowed down the recruitment of activity in all networks. Finally, we show characteristic super bursts composed of slow NBs with highly repetitive spatio-temporal patterns in gradually AMPAR blocked networks. To the best of our knowledge, this study is the first to unravel in detail how the three main mediators of synaptic transmission uniquely shape the NB characteristics, such as the initiation, maintenance, recruitment and termination of NBs in cortical cell cultures in vitro.

Inhibition increases response variability and reduces stimulus discrimination in random networks of cortical neurons

Much of what is known about the contribution of inhibition to stimulus discrimination is due to extensively studied sensory systems, which are highly structured neural circuits. The effect of inhibition on stimulus representation in less structured networks is not as clear. Here we exercise a biosynthetic approach in order to study the impacts of inhibition on stimulus representation in non-specialized network anatomy. Combining pharmacological manipulation, multisite electrical stimulation and recording from ex-vivo randomly rewired networks of cortical neurons, we quantified the effects of inhibition on response variability and stimulus discrimination at the population and single unit levels. We find that blocking inhibition quenches variability of responses evoked by repeated stimuli and enhances discrimination between stimuli that invade the network from different spatial loci. Enhanced stimulus discrimination is reserved for representation schemes that are based on temporal relation between spikes emitted in groups of neurons. Our data indicate that - under intact inhibition - the response to a given stimulus is a noisy version of the response evoked in the absence of inhibition. Spatial analysis suggests that the dispersion effect of inhibition is due to disruption of an otherwise coherent, wave-like propagation of activity.