Figure 6. Astrocytes induce changes in visual response properties of PV⁺ neurons in vivo.

(a) Schematic drawings of cell-attached recordings from PV⁺ neuron, visual stimulation, putative intracortical connectivity and ChR2-transfected astrocytes. (b) Representative tuning curves of two PV⁺ neurons before (Control, black) and after astrocyte stimulation (red). Tuning curves are best-fit Gaussians to the mean firing rates (dots denote measured firing rates and lines denote fitted curves; error bars denote s.e.m. of 10 responses). (c) Population summary of astrocyte-induced changes in baseline firing rate (circles denote individual cells, n=18. Black circles, cells with no significant changes that were discarded from subsequent analyses, n=4. Cross denotes population average). (d) Population summary of astrocyte-induced changes in OSI, DSI and peak firing rate (n=14). (e) Index (normalized change) in tuning properties after versus before astrocyte stimulation. ***P<0.001; Wilcoxon test. Error bars indicate s.e.m.