The work during the project led to several publications, preprints, and presentations at major conferences. In Aim 1, we developed multilayer circuit models constrained by experimental data to understand how spontaneous activity is generated in the sensory cortex. Our work showed that specific GABAergic inhibitory neurons, first deep-layer and later more local interneurons of different genetically identified subtypes, act in sequence to synchronize early spontaneous events, strengthen recurrent connections, and ultimately enable the transition from early global waves to the desynchronized activity seen in mature cortex. These results, presented at the Gordon Research Conference and the Bernstein Workshop, are currently being prepared for publication.
In Aim 2, we analyzed calcium imaging data from developing visual cortex and identified two core spontaneous activity patterns: low-amplitude retinal events and high-amplitude cortical events. We built multiscale models to study their developmental roles. In Wosniack et al., (2021), we showed that retinal events refine nearest-neighbor connectivity, while cortical events regulate synaptic strengths. In Kirchner & Gjorgjieva (2021), we demonstrated how spontaneous activity organizes synapses into functional clusters and explained species-specific differences in dendritic organization. Additional work (Dwulet et al., 2024) showed how coordinated spontaneous activity across sensory areas supports early multisensory circuit formation.
In Aim 3, we investigated how circuits reorganize with sensory experience. In Eckmann et al., (2024), we developed a biologically grounded learning framework showing how excitatory and inhibitory plasticity together self-organize recurrent networks into stable, functional architectures that reproduce core computations of sensory cortex. In related work (Montangie et al., 2020; Festa et al., 2024), we developed new mathematical tools to analyze plasticity in recurrent networks. In Wu et al. (2020), we used these rules to explain how firing rates and correlations recover after sensory deprivation.
Across the project, results were disseminated through peer-reviewed publications, preprints, invited talks at COSYNE, the Bernstein Conference, multiple Gordon Research Conferences, and public outreach events such as TEDxTUM. The models, code, and analytical tools developed here are openly shared and already used by other research groups, supporting further exploitation of the findings.
