Chronic calcium imaging

A characteristic feature of developing sensory circuits is spontaneous co-activations that initiate organized networks and maps in preparation for sensory experience. In species such as primates and carnivores, the mature visual cortex is characterized by iterated clusters of similarly responding neurons, or modules, and provides an excellent model system for exploring the mechanisms underlying the development of functional network organization. The sequence of early events that leads to the initial emergence of modular network structure remains unknown. Interestingly during this period of ear

…Using chronic calcium imaging in mouse auditory cortex, we show that during this representational drift signal correlations predict future noise correlations, suggesting that stimulus-driven co-activation strengthens effective connectivity via Hebbian-like plasticity. Linear network models reveal that these temporal dependencies between signal and noise correlations emerge only when Hebbian learning balances stochastic synaptic changes, preventing functional degradation