Scientists from Washington University in St. Louis have studied how neurons in the visual cortex work.
Previously it was believed that only neuronsin the parts of the brain associated with odors and spatial memory, their responses to the same stimuli change over time. No such features were noticed in the visual cortex.
We know what the brain is constantlychanging structure, so we expect that neuronal activity will change within a few days if we learn or have new experiences. What was really unexpected for us was that even in the absence of learning, neural activity in different areas of the brain continues to change.
Ji Xia, co-author of the study
During the new work, the authors conducted an experiment:they showed mice a short video and recorded the activity of several hundred of their neurons in the primary visual cortex using two-photon calcium imaging. This was repeated for seven days in a row.
As a result, the researchers found that the response of individual neurons to the video was unstable over the course of weeks, meaning that they responded differently to the same images.
Previously, a similar process for other groups of neurons was called “representational drift.” But the presence of drift in the visual cortex was a surprise for the authors of the work.
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