Electrical stimulation is an effective tool for mapping and altering brain connectivity, with applications ranging from treating pharmacology-resistant neurological disorders to providing sensory feedback for neural prostheses. Paramount to the success of these applications is the ability to manipulate electrical currents to precisely control evoked neural activity patterns. However, little is known about stimulation-evoked responses in inhibitory neurons nor how stimulation-evoked activity patterns depend on ongoing neural activity. In this study, we used 2-photon imaging and cell-type specific labeling to measure single-cell responses of excitatory and inhibitory neurons to electrical stimuli in the visual cortex of awake mice. Our data revealed strong interactions between electrical stimulation and pre-stimulus activity of single neurons in awake animals and distinct recruitment and response patterns for excitatory and inhibitory neurons. This work demonstrates the importance of cell-type-specific labeling of neurons in future studies.

电刺激是绘制和改变大脑连接的有效工具，其应用范围从治疗药理抵抗性神经系统疾病到为神经假体提供感觉反馈。这些应用的成功最重要的是能够操纵电流以精确控制诱发的神经活动模式。然而，人们对抑制性神经元中刺激诱发的反应以及刺激诱发的活动模式如何依赖于持续的神经活动知之甚少。在这项研究中，我们使用 2 光子成像和细胞类型特异性标记来测量清醒小鼠视觉皮层中兴奋性和抑制性神经元对电刺激的单细胞反应。我们的数据揭示了清醒动物中单个神经元的电刺激和刺激前活动之间的强烈相互作用，以及兴奋性和抑制性神经元的不同招募和反应模式。这项工作证明了神经元细胞类型特异性标记在未来研究中的重要性。