Spontaneous activity in the brain maintains an internal structured pattern that reflects the external environment, which is essential for processing information and developing perception and cognition. An essential prerequisite of spontaneous activity for perception is the ability to reverberate external information, such as by potentiation. Yet its role in the processing of potentiation in mouse superior colliculus (SC) neurons is less studied. Here, we used electrophysiological recording, optogenetics, and drug infusion methods to investigate the mechanism of potentiation in SC neurons. We found that visual experience potentiated SC neurons several minutes later in different developmental stages, and the similarity between spontaneous and visually-evoked activity increased with age. Before eye-opening, activation of retinal ganglion cells that expressed ChR2 also induced the potentiation of spontaneous activity in the mouse SC. Potentiation was dependent on stimulus number and showed feature selectivity for direction and orientation. Optogenetic activation of parvalbumin neurons in the SC attenuated the potentiation induced by visual experience. Furthermore, potentiation in SC neurons was blocked by inhibiting the glutamate transporter GLT1. These results indicated that the potentiation induced by a visual stimulus might play a key role in shaping the internal representation of the environment, and serves as a carrier for short-term memory consolidation.

大脑中的自发活动维持一种反映外部环境的内部结构化模式，这对于处理信息以及发展感知和认知至关重要。感知的自发活动的一个基本先决条件是回响外部信息的能力，例如通过增强。然而，它在小鼠上丘 (SC) 神经元增强处理中的作用研究较少。在这里，我们使用电生理记录、光遗传学和药物输注方法来研究 SC 神经元的增强机制。我们发现视觉体验在几分钟后在不同发育阶段增强了 SC 神经元，并且自发活动和视觉诱发活动之间的相似性随着年龄的增长而增加。睁眼之前，表达 ChR2 的视网膜神经节细胞的激活也诱导小鼠 SC 中自发活动的增强。增强取决于刺激数量，并显示出方向和方向的特征选择性。SC 中小白蛋白神经元的光遗传学激活减弱了视觉体验诱导的增强作用。此外，通过抑制谷氨酸转运蛋白 GLT1，SC 神经元的增强作用被阻断。这些结果表明，视觉刺激引起的增强可能在塑造环境的内部表征中起关键作用，并作为短期记忆巩固的载体。SC 中小白蛋白神经元的光遗传学激活减弱了视觉体验诱导的增强作用。此外，通过抑制谷氨酸转运蛋白 GLT1，SC 神经元的增强作用被阻断。这些结果表明，视觉刺激引起的增强可能在塑造环境的内部表征中起关键作用，并作为短期记忆巩固的载体。SC 中小白蛋白神经元的光遗传学激活减弱了视觉体验诱导的增强作用。此外，通过抑制谷氨酸转运蛋白 GLT1，SC 神经元的增强作用被阻断。这些结果表明，视觉刺激引起的增强可能在塑造环境的内部表征中起关键作用，并作为短期记忆巩固的载体。