Theta activity paradoxically boosts gamma and ripple frequency sensitivity in prefrontal interneurons

Abstract

Fast oscillations in cortical circuits critically depend on GABAergic interneurons. Which interneuron types and populations can drive different cortical rhythms, however, remains unresolved and may depend on brain state. Here, we measured the sensitivity of different GABAergic interneurons in prefrontal cortex under conditions mimicking distinct brain states. While fast-spiking neurons always exhibited a wide bandwidth of around 400 Hz, the response properties of spike-frequency adapting interneurons switched with the background inputs statistics. Slowly fluctuating background activity, as typical for sleep or quiet wakefulness, dramatically boosted the neurons sensitivity to gamma- and ripple-frequencies. A novel time-resolved dynamic gain analysis revealed rapid sensitivity modulations that enable neurons to periodically boost gamma oscillations and ripples during specific phases of ongoing low-frequency oscillations. This mechanism presumably contributes substantially to cross-frequency coupling and predicts these prefrontal interneurons to be exquisitely sensitive to high-frequency ripples, especially during brain states characterized by slow rhythms.