Travelling spindles create necessary conditions for spike-timing-dependent plasticity in humans
Charles W. Dickey, Anna Sargsyan, Joseph R. Madsen, Emad N. Eskandar, Sydney S. Cash, Eric Halgren
Abstract
Sleep spindles facilitate memory consolidation in the cortex during mammalian non-rapid eye movement sleep. In rodents, phase-locked firing during spindles may facilitate spike-timing-dependent plasticity by grouping pre-then-post-synaptic cell firing within ~25 ms. Currently, microphysiological evidence in humans for conditions conducive for spike-timing-dependent plasticity during spindles is absent. Here, we analyze field potentials and unit firing from middle/upper layers during spindles from 10 × 10 microelectrode arrays at 400 μm pitch in humans. We report strong tonic and phase-locked increases in firing and co-firing within 25 ms during spindles, especially those co-occurring with down-to-upstate transitions. Co-firing, spindle co-occurrence, and spindle coherence are greatest within ~2 mm, and high co-firing of units on different contacts depends on high spindle coherence between those contacts. Spindles propagate at ~0.28 m/s in distinct patterns, with correlated cell co-firing sequences. Spindles hence organize spatiotemporal patterns of neuronal co-firing in ways that may provide pre-conditions for plasticity during non-rapid eye movement sleep.