Research from the lab of GSBS faculty member Valentin Dragoi, PhD, Rochelle and Max Levit Distinguished Professor in the Neurosciences, studying neuronal interactions in visual and prefrontal cortical areas has been published inNeuron.

First author for the paper, titled “High-order interaction explain the collective behavior of cortical populations in executive but not sensory areas,” is Mircea Chelaru, PhD. Co-authors include GSBS student Russel Milton, and GSBS alumni Sarah Eagleman, PhD; Ariana Andrei, PhD; and Natasha Kharas, MD, PhD.

作者写道：“据信神经种群中的信息在高度相互联系的神经网络的集体活动中编码。”“描述神经种群的集体行为是一项具有挑战性的任务，随着人群的大小的增加，可能的细胞反应的组合爆炸会加剧复杂性。”

Using chronically implanted arrays of electrodes, researchers recorded neurons in three brain areas, specifically visual areas V1 and V4, and downstream area of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex while animals performed a behavioral task and while they were sleeping. During the behavioral task, animals performed a 60 to 90-minute image discrimination experiment. While resting they were placed in a dark, quiet room for 20 to 30 minutes with their eyes closed.

After monitoring the spiking activity of each cell, researchers grouped the responses together and formed binary words which described the state of the population in each brain area. The team then used these words to monitor how the activity of neurons in each area is predicted by a maximum entropy model.

“Our findings have general implications for our understanding of the detailed structure of spiking activity during wakefulness and sleep across cortical circuits,” the authors said.

该团队的研究表明，早期beplay苹果手机能用吗和中级视觉皮层中神经元之间的成对（第二阶）相互作用捕获了超过90％的详细尖峰模式，在清醒和睡眠期间观察到。但是，无论大脑在哪种状态下，成对的相互作用都不能解释执行大脑区域的神经元种群的熵。

作者说：“这意味着要解释下游的人口动态，执行领域必须涉及高阶互动。”“令人惊讶的是，尽管全球大脑状态通常与感觉皮质区域的皮质反应的不同模式相关，但基于成对的模型可以牢固地解释这些区域中尖峰活动的结构。但是，无论大脑状态如何，成对的相互作用都不足以解释前额叶皮层中的尖峰活动可能反映出该区域从多感应，运动和规划区域获得的高度异构投入来源。”

为了捕捉和解释高阶国米actions between neurons, large-cell assemblies and advanced computation techniques were required. “Our findings may reflect a general principle of cortical function across brain states, whereby the population responses in sensory areas is largely explained by pairwise interactions between neurons, whereas the responses in executive areas encoding decision making and action rely on higher-order interactions,” the authors said.

实验室的发现将导致未来的研究项目，以检查大脑的其他区域，包括视觉和前额叶皮层区域（包括皮层区域beplay苹果手机能用吗）。该团队还希望发现适应和学习如何影响这些神经元的互动，以及这些领域的尖峰活动在中风或其他神经损伤中的兴奋性活动。

“The basic issues addressed in our article have fascinated neuroscientists, computer scientists, mathematician, and physicists for the past decades, yet the results of previous studies were inconclusive” Dragoi said. “We believe that our work has generated an important result in systems neuroscience that offers a new framework for understanding the language of neural populations across brain areas.”