Optogenetic Control of the BOLD Response During Local Suppression of Neuronal Activity by Muscimol

Daniil Aksenov¹, ², Limin Li¹, ², Michael Miller¹, ², George Iordanescu¹, ², Alice Wyrwicz¹, ²

Optogenetic control offers great potential for studying the relationship between BOLD and neuronal activity in specific cell populations under a variety of modulatory conditions. In this work, we combine simultaneous fMRI and electrophysiological recording in the whisker barrel cortex with localized pharmacological modulation and optogenetic stimulation to examine the BOLD response in awake rabbits before and after local injection of the GABA-A agonist muscimol. Our results indicate that BOLD area and magnitude are preserved during optical stimulation in the cortex even in the presence of increased inhibition produced by muscimol injection, but thalamic BOLD response decreased after injection.