bioRxiv preprint doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/752683; this version posted September 2, 2019. The copyright holder for this preprint (which was not certified by peer review) is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under aCC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license. 1 State-dependent pontine ensemble dynamics and 2 interactions with cortex across sleep states 3 4 Tomomi Tsunematsu1,2,3, Amisha A Patel1, Arno Onken4, Shuzo Sakata1 5 6 1 Strathclyde Institute of Pharmacy and Biomedical Sciences, University of Strathclyde, 161 7 Cathedral Street, Glasgow G4 0RE, UK 8 2 Super-network Brain Physiology, Graduate School of Life Sciences, Tohoku University, Sendai 9 980-8577, Japan 10 3 Precursory Research for Embryonic Science and Technology, Japan Science and Technology 11 Agency, Kawaguchi 332-0012, Japan 12 4 School of Informatics, University of Edinburgh, 10 Crichton Street, Edinburgh EH8 9AB, UK 13 Correspondence (
[email protected]) 14 15 Abstract 16 The pontine nuclei play a crucial role in sleep-wake regulation. However, pontine ensemble 17 dynamics underlying sleep regulation remain poorly understood. By monitoring population 18 activity in multiple pontine and adjacent brainstem areas, here we show slow, state-predictive 19 pontine ensemble dynamics and state-dependent interactions between the pons and the 20 cortex in mice. On a timescale of seconds to minutes, pontine populations exhibit diverse 21 firing across vigilance states, with some of these dynamics being attributed to cell type- 22 specific activity. Pontine population activity can predict pupil dilation and vigilance states: 23 pontine neurons exhibit longer predictable power compared with hippocampal neurons.