sets a first milestone for future studies of the ontogeny of func

sets a first milestone for future studies of the ontogeny of functional connectivity and crosstalk between the HC and PFC. The fact that SB-type Screening Library manufacturer events are present in primary sensory areas as well as in the PFC suggests that the mechanisms underlying discontinuous

neonatal activity patterns are highly conserved among distinct cortical areas and in different species, including humans. In rats, the discontinuous events are seen during early postnatal development, whereas in humans they occur during the second and third trimesters of gestation, as indicated by work on preterm babies (Dreyfus-Brisac, 1962 and Vanhatalo et al., 2002). This fits well with what is known regarding cross-species calibration of developmental stage between the rodent and human cortex. Hence, information on the generation and properties of the

early events gained in animal experiments is likely to be useful in the interpretation and clinical assessment of the preterm EEG. Here, it is worth noting that oscillations within classical EEG frequency bands do not imply anything regarding their mechanisms of generation. Thus, it remains to be seen to what extent, for instance, early gamma-band activity bears similarities to gamma oscillations in the adult cortex. Brockmann et al. propose that the oscillatory drive from the HC to the PFC facilitates the morphological and functional development of the PFC and enables the refinement Capmatinib in vitro of the behaviorally relevant communication scaffold between the two areas. These speculations are consistent

with what is generally thought about activity-dependent plasticity in the developing cortex. However, direct experimental demonstration of an instructive role for early HC activity in the refinement of PFC connectivity will require further work with specific manipulations of spatiotemporal network patterns without gross alterations Metalloexopeptidase of firing at the single-neuron level (Xu et al., 2011). A point worth raising here is that the discontinuous activity patterns seen in the developing cortex may have multiple roles, in addition to their (as-yet to-be-proven) effects on neuronal wiring. Interestingly, recent work has suggested that in rats and preterm babies, the weak retinal output is amplified by SB-like network events in the visual cortex, enabling an early form of vision before eye opening in rats and before birth in humans (Colonnese et al., 2010). The HC-PFC circuitry is most likely not immediately involved in overt behavior or sensory processing in the neonate rat, as also concluded by Brockmann et al. However, the possibility remains that even during sleep, the HC-PFC activity has preadaptive, “anticipatory” functions—analogous to the one described above for the visual system—which serve to harmonize brain development with regard to future conditions (Hinde, 1970).

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