Schaffer-Specific Local Field Potentials Reflect Discrete Excitatory Events at Gamma Frequency That May Fire Postsynaptic Hippocampal CA1 Units

Information processing and exchange between brain nuclei are made through spike series sent by individual neurons in highly irregular temporal patterns. Synchronization in cell assemblies, proposed as a network language for internal neural representations, still has little experimental support. We use a novel technique to extract pathway-specific local field potentials (LFPs) in the hippocampus to explore the ongoing temporal structure of a single presynaptic input, the CA3 Schaffer pathway, and its contribution to the spontaneous output of CA1 units in anesthetized rat. We found that Schaffer-specific LFPs are composed of a regular succession of pulse-like excitatory packages initiated by spontaneous clustered firing of CA3 pyramidal cells to which individual units contribute variably. A fraction of these packages readily induce firing of CA1 pyramidal cells and interneurons, the so-called Schaffer-driven spikes, revealing the presynaptic origin in the output code of single CA1 units. The output of 70% of CA1 pyramidal neurons contains up to 10% of such spikes. Our results suggest a hierarchical internal operation of the CA3 region based on sequential oscillatory activation of pyramidal cell assemblies whose activity partly gets in the output code at the next station. We conclude that CA1 output may directly reflect the activity of specific ensembles of CA3 neurons. Thus, the fine temporal structure of pathway-specific LFPs, as an accurate readout of the activity of a presynaptic population, is useful in searching for hidden presynaptic code in irregular spikes series of individual neurons and assemblies.