# Local field potential sharp waves with diversified impact on cortical neuronal encoding of haptic input

## TL;DR

This study explores how sharp waves in the brain's somatosensory cortex affect how neurons process touch information.

## Contribution

The paper introduces a method to identify sharp waves and shows their varied impact on tactile processing.

## Key findings

- LFP-SPWs trigger widespread neuronal activation, with some neurons firing before the wave onset.
- LFP-SPWs can either enhance or suppress tactile responses in neurons.
- Coactivation with distant cortical SPWs can invert the impact of LFP-SPWs on tactile responses.

## Abstract

Cortical sensory processing is greatly impacted by internally generated activity. But controlling for that activity is difficult since the thalamocortical network is a high-dimensional system with rapid state changes. Therefore, to unwind the cortical computational architecture there is a need for physiological ‘landmarks’ that can be used as frames of reference for computational state. Here we use a waveshape transform method to identify conspicuous local field potential sharp waves (LFP-SPWs) in the somatosensory cortex (S1). LFP-SPW events triggered short-lasting but massive neuronal activation in all recorded neurons with a subset of neurons initiating their activation up to 20 ms before the LFP-SPW onset. In contrast, LFP-SPWs differentially impacted the neuronal spike responses to ensuing tactile inputs, depressing the tactile responses in some neurons and enhancing them in others. When LFP-SPWs coactivated with more distant cortical surface (ECoG)-SPWs, suggesting an involvement of these SPWs in global cortical signaling, the impact of the LFP-SPW on the neuronal tactile response could change substantially, including inverting its impact to the opposite. These cortical SPWs shared many signal fingerprint characteristics as reported for hippocampal SPWs and may be a biomarker for a particular type of state change that is possibly shared byboth hippocampus and neocortex.