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Lookup NU author(s): Dr Wei Xu, Felipe De Carvalho, Professor Andrew Jackson
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).
Sequential firing of neurons during sleep is thought to play a role in the consolidation of learning, but direct evidence for such sequence replay is limited to only a few brain areas and sleep states mainly in rodents. Using a custom-designed wearable neural data logger and chronically implanted electrodes, we made long-term recordings of neural activity in the primary motor cortex of 2 female non-human primates during free behavior and natural sleep. We used the local field potential (LFP) spectrogram to characterize sleep cycles, and examined firing rates, correlations and sequential firing of neurons at different frequency bands through the cycle. Slow-wave sleep (SWS) was characterized by low neural firing rates and high synchrony reflecting slow oscillations between cortical down and up states. However, the order in which neurons entered up states was similar to the sequence of neural activity observed at low frequencies during waking behavior. In addition, we found evidence for brief bursts of theta oscillation, associated with non-SWS states during which neurons fired in strikingly regular sequential order phase-locked to the LFP. Theta sequences were preserved between waking and sleep, but appeared not to resemble the order of neural activity observed at lower frequencies. The sequential firing of neurons during slow oscillations and theta bursts may contribute to the consolidation of procedural memories during sleep.
Author(s): Xu W, de Carvalho D, Jackson A
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: Journal of Neuroscience
Year: 2019
Volume: 39
Issue: 19
Pages: 3698-3712
Print publication date: 08/05/2019
Online publication date: 06/03/2019
Acceptance date: 02/02/2019
Date deposited: 13/03/2019
ISSN (print): 0270-6474
ISSN (electronic): 1529-2401
Publisher: Society for Neuroscience
URL: https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1408-18.2019
DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1408-18.2019
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