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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2012 Oct 20.
Published in final edited form as: Neuron. 2011 Oct 20;72(2):231–243. doi: 10.1016/j.neuron.2011.09.027

Figure 6.

Figure 6

Cortical interneurons are more broadly tuned to sensory stimuli than principal cells. A, In vivo 2-photon calcium imaging of activity in visual cortex of transgenic mice expressing GFP in GABAergic interneurons. Cells are loaded with the calcium-sensitive dye fura-2 AM to monitor activity evoked by drifting gratings of different orientations and interneurons (Int) are distinguished from pyramidal cells (Pyr) based on expression of GFP. B, Top, Traces of calcium responses show that while GFP(−) pyramidal cells are highly selective for stimuli of particular orientations, a nearby GFP(+) interneuron is broadly responsive to all stimulus orientations. Bottom, Polar plots of visual responses to the oriented stimuli from the same cells. C, Distributions of orientation selectivity index (range 0=untuned to 1=highly selective) from a number of recordings show that responses in GFP(+) interneurons are less selective to stimulus orientation than pyramidal cells. Modified from (Sohya et al., 2007).