PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Guangyu Robert Yang
AU  - John D. Murray
AU  - Xiao-Jing Wang
TI  - A Dendritic Disinhibitory Circuit Mechanism for Pathway-Specific Gating
AID  - 10.1101/041673
DP  - 2016 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 041673
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2016/02/28/041673.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2016/02/28/041673.full
AB  - In this work we propose that a disinhibitory circuit motif, which recently gained experimental support, can instantiate flexible routing of information flow along selective pathways in a complex system of cortical areas according to behavioral demands (pathway-specific gating). We developed a network model of pyramidal neurons and three classes of interneurons, with connection probabilities constrained by data. If distinct input pathways cluster on separate dendritic branches of pyramidal neurons, then a pathway can be gated-on by disinhibiting targeted dendrites. We show that this branch-specific disinhibition can be achieved despite dense in-terneuronal connectivity, even under the assumption of random connections. We found clustering of input pathways on dendrites can emerge through synaptic plasticity regulated by disinhibition. This gating mechanism in a neural circuit is further demonstrated by performing a context-dependent decision-making task. Our findings suggest a microcircuit architecture that harnesses dendritic computation and diverse inhibitory neuron types to subserve cognitive flexibility.