Activity Changes Induced by Spatio-Temporally Correlated Stimuli in Cultured Cortical Networks

Abstract

Activity-dependent plasticity probably plays a key role in learning and memory in biological information processing systems. Though long-term potentiation and depression have been extensively studied in the filed of neuroscience, little is known on the mechanisms for integrating these modifications on network-wide activity changes. In this report, we studied effects of spatio-temporally correlated stimuli on the neuronal network activity. Rat cortical neurons were cultured on substrates with 64 embedded micro-electrodes and the evoked responses were extracellularly recorded and analyzed. We compared spatio-temporal patterns of the responses between before and after repetitive application of correlated stimuli. After the correlated stimuli, the networks showed significantly different responses from those in the initial states. The modified activity reflected structures of the repeatedly applied correlated stimuli. The results suggested that spatiotemporally correlated inputs systematically induced modification of synaptic strengths in neuronal networks, which could serve as an underlying mechanism of associative memory.