Local field potentials are local events in the mouse auditory cortex

Local field potentials (LFPs) and spikes (SPKs) sampled at the thalamocortical recipient layers represent the inputs from the thalamus and outputs to other layers. Previous studies have shown that SPK‐constructed receptive fields (RF(SPK)) of cortical neurons are much smaller than LFP‐constructed RFs (RF(LFP)). The difference in cortical RF(LFP) and RF(SPK) is therefore a plausible indication of local networking. The presence of a boarder RF(LFP) appears due to contamination, to some degree, from remote sites. Our studies of the mouse primary auditory cortex show that the best frequencies and minimum thresholds of RF(SPK) and RF(LFP) were similar. We also observed that the RF(LFP) area was only slightly larger than the RF(SPK) area, a very different finding from previous reports. The bandwidth of RF(LFP) was slightly broader than that of RF(SPK) at all levels. These data do not support the explanation that bioelectrical signals from distant sites impact on cortical LFP through volume conduction. That the cortical LFP represents a local event is further supported by comparisons of RF(SPK) and RF(LFP) after cortical inhibition by muscimol and cortical disinhibition by bicuculine. We conclude that the difference between RF(SPK) (output of cortical neurons) and RF(LFP) (input of cortical neurons) results from intracortical processing, including cortical lateral inhibition and excitation.