Dynamics of the Parkinsonian Striatal Microcircuit: Entrainment into a Dominant Network State

Neuronal synchronization in basal ganglia circuits plays a key role in the encoding of movement, procedural memory storage and habit formation. Striatal dopamine (DA) depletion during Parkinsonism causes abnormal synchronization in corticobasal ganglia loops resulting in motor dysfunction. However, the dynamics of the striatal microcircuit underlying abnormal synchronization in Parkinsonism is poorly understood. Here we used targeted whole-cell recordings, calcium imaging allowing the recording from dozens of cells simultaneously and analytical approaches, to describe the striking alterations in network dynamics that the striatal microcircuit undergoes following DA depletion in a rat model of Parkinson disease (PD): In addition to a significant enhancement of basal neuronal activity frequent periods of spontaneous synchronization were observed. Multidimensional reduction techniques of vectorized network dynamics revealed that increased synchronization resulted from a dominant network state that absorbed most spontaneously active cells. Abnormal synchronous activity can be virtually abolished by glutamatergic antagonists, while blockade of GABAergic transmission facilitates the engagement of striatal cell assemblies in the dominant state. Finally, a dopaminergic receptor agonist was capable of uncoupling neurons from the dominant state. Abnormal synchronization and “locking” into a dominant state may represent the basic neuronal mechanism that underlies movement disorders at the microcircuit level.