Realistic coupling enables flexible macroscopic traveling waves in the mouse cortex
Traveling waves are ubiquitous in neuronal systems across different spatial scales. While microscopic and mesoscopic waves are relatively well studied, the emergence of macroscopic traveling waves remains less understood. Here, by modeling the mouse cortex using spatial transcriptomic and connectivity data, we show that realistic cortical connectivity can generate a significantly higher level of…
Neuronal systems exhibit traveling waves at various spatial scales. While microscopic and mesoscopic waves are well-studied, the emergence of macroscopic traveling waves in the mouse cortex is still unclear. Researchers utilized spatial transcriptomic and connectivity data to model the mouse cortex and discovered that realistic cortical connectivity generates a substantially higher number of macroscopic traveling waves across multiple oscillation frequency bands compared to artificial local and uniform connectivity.
The most significant advantage was observed in the theta, alpha, and beta frequency bands. By examining the model in various dynamic regimes, the researchers found that macroscopic wave activity depends on both network connectivity and excitatory coupling strength. However, the relationship between these factors and wave activity is not linear; it exhibits a non-monotonic dependence on coupling.
This study demonstrates how flexible macroscopic traveling waves can arise in the mouse cortex and provides a computational framework for further investigation into traveling waves within the mouse brain at the single-cell level.
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