Fig. 2: Microablation-induced disturbance and recovery of the representational map.
From: Homeostasis of a representational map in the neocortex
a, Two-photon microablation of a functionally characterized neuron with PT tuning. Top: before ablation. Bottom: 2 days after ablation. Microablated neurons showed permanent loss of nuclear and sound-evoked signals; scale bar, 50 μm. White arrow indicates neuron targeted for ablation. b, Specificity of the single-neuron ablation protocol obtained in a pilot experiment (two mice). c, Target neurons for microablation. Top: sorted sound-evoked amplitudes in a FOV before ablation. In the sound-responsive ablation cohort, four to eight highly responsive neurons per FOV (six to eight vertically aligned FOVs in layer 2/3 per mouse) were targeted (see Methods). In the nonresponsive microablation cohort, a similar number of nonresponsive neurons were targeted. The control cohort had no ablation on day 6. Bottom: targeted or corresponding responsive (high-category) and nonresponsive (low-category) neurons were excluded from the analysis, which focused on the remaining spared neurons (gray bars). d, Similarity matrix of population response vectors for all stimuli, averaged across FOVs per day in the sound-responsive ablation cohort (n = 69 FOVs; see also Fig. 1h). Yellow arrowhead and vertical line indicate ablation procedure on day 6. e, Baseline-normalized correlations averaged across diagonal (dark orange) and nondiagonal (light orange) elements in d (data are shown as mean ± s.e.m. across 10 mice). Yellow vertical line indicates ablation procedure on day 6. Data were analyzed by two-sided t-test between baseline and postablation days with an FDR correction (*P < 0.05, **P < 0.001). f, Same as d for the non-sound-responsive ablation cohort (n = 73 FOVs). g, Same as e but baseline-normalized correlations across diagonal (dark blue) and nondiagonal (light blue) elements in the similarity matrices in f (n = 10 mice). Data were analyzed by two-sided t-test for all postablation days; P > 0.72. See statistical details in Supplementary Table 1.
