Leadership in 2D living neural networks

TL;DR

This study investigates the role of leader neurons in the spontaneous burst activity of rat neural cultures, revealing their stability, influence on burst initiation, and potential as nucleation centers within neural networks.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed analysis of leader neurons' long-term dynamics, their influence on burst development, and how stimulation affects their distribution.

Findings

Leaders are stable over 23-34 hours and can be temporarily altered by stimulation.

Leader activity predicts the transition from precursor events to full bursts.

Leaders carry information about burst identity and act as nucleation centers.

Abstract

Eytan and Marom recently showed that the spontaneous burst activity of rat neuron cultures includes `first to fire' cells that consistently fire earlier than others. Here we analyze the behavior of these neurons in long term recordings of spontaneous activity of rat hippocampal and rat cortical neuron cultures from three different laboratories. We identify precursor events that may either subside (`small events') or can lead to a full-blown burst (`pre-bursts'). We find that the activation in the pre-burst typically has a first neuron (`leader'), followed by a localized response in its neighborhood. Locality is diminished in the bursts themselves. The long term dynamics of the leaders is relatively robust, evolving with a half-life of 23-34 hours. Stimulation of the culture can temporarily alter the leader distribution, but it returns to the previous distribution within about 1 hour. We show that the leaders carry information about the identity of the burst, as measured by the signature of the number of spikes per neuron in a burst. The number of spikes from leaders in the first few spikes of a precursor event is furthermore shown to be predictive with regard to the transition into a burst (pre-burst versus small event). We conclude that the leaders play a r\^ole in the development of the bursts, and conjecture that they are part of an underlying sub-network that is excited first and then act as nucleation centers for the burst.