A ubiquitous spectrolaminar motif of local field potential power across the primate cortex

Diego Mendoza-Halliday; Alex James Major; Noah Lee; Maxwell J Lichtenfeld; Brock Carlson; Blake Mitchell; Patrick D Meng; Yihan Sophy Xiong; Jacob A Westerberg; Xiaoxuan Jia; Kevin D Johnston; Janahan Selvanayagam; Stefan Everling; Alexander Maier; Robert Desimone; Earl K Miller; André M Bastos

doi:10.1038/s41593-023-01554-7

A ubiquitous spectrolaminar motif of local field potential power across the primate cortex

Nat Neurosci. 2024 Mar;27(3):547-560. doi: 10.1038/s41593-023-01554-7. Epub 2024 Jan 18.

Authors

Diego Mendoza-Halliday^#¹, Alex James Major^#², Noah Lee³, Maxwell J Lichtenfeld⁴, Brock Carlson^{4

5

6}, Blake Mitchell^{4

5

6}, Patrick D Meng⁴, Yihan Sophy Xiong^{4

5

6}, Jacob A Westerberg^{4

5

6

7}, Xiaoxuan Jia^{8

9}, Kevin D Johnston^{10

11

12}, Janahan Selvanayagam^{10

11}, Stefan Everling^{10

11

12}, Alexander Maier^{4

5

6}, Robert Desimone³, Earl K Miller², André M Bastos^{13

14

15}

Affiliations

¹ McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA. diegomendoza@pitt.edu.
² The Picower Institute for Learning and Memory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA.
³ McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA.
⁴ Department of Psychology, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA.
⁵ Vanderbilt Vision Research Center, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA.
⁶ Vanderbilt Brain Institute, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA.
⁷ Department of Vision and Cognition, Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience, Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
⁸ School of Life Sciences, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China.
⁹ IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China.
¹⁰ Graduate Program in Neuroscience, Western University, London, ON, Canada.
¹¹ Centre for Functional and Metabolic Mapping, Robarts Research Institute, University of Western Ontario, London, ON, Canada.
¹² Department of Physiology and Pharmacology, University of Western Ontario, London, ON, Canada.
¹³ Department of Psychology, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA. andre.bastos@vanderbilt.edu.
¹⁴ Vanderbilt Vision Research Center, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA. andre.bastos@vanderbilt.edu.
¹⁵ Vanderbilt Brain Institute, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA. andre.bastos@vanderbilt.edu.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

The mammalian cerebral cortex is anatomically organized into a six-layer motif. It is currently unknown whether a corresponding laminar motif of neuronal activity patterns exists across the cortex. Here we report such a motif in the power of local field potentials (LFPs). Using laminar probes, we recorded LFPs from 14 cortical areas across the cortical hierarchy in five macaque monkeys. The laminar locations of recordings were histologically identified by electrolytic lesions. Across all areas, we found a ubiquitous spectrolaminar pattern characterized by an increasing deep-to-superficial layer gradient of high-frequency power peaking in layers 2/3 and an increasing superficial-to-deep gradient of alpha-beta power peaking in layers 5/6. Laminar recordings from additional species showed that the spectrolaminar pattern is highly preserved among primates-macaque, marmoset and human-but more dissimilar in mouse. Our results suggest the existence of a canonical layer-based and frequency-based mechanism for cortical computation.

MeSH terms

Animals
Cerebral Cortex*
Humans
Macaca*
Mammals
Mice
Neurons / physiology

Abstract

MeSH terms

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