In silico voltage-sensitive dye imaging reveals the emergent dynamics of cortical populations

Voltage-sensitive dye imaging (VSDI) is a powerful technique for interrogating membrane potential dynamics in assemblies of cortical neurons, but with effective resolution limits that confound interpretation. To address this limitation, we developed an in silico model of VSDI in a biologically faithful digital reconstruction of rodent neocortical microcircuitry. Using this model, we extend previous experimental observations regarding the cellular origins of VSDI, finding that the signal is driven primarily by neurons in layers 2/3 and 5, and that VSDI measurements do not capture individual spikes. Furthermore, we test the capacity of VSD image sequences to discriminate between afferent thalamic inputs at various spatial locations to estimate a lower bound on the functional resolution of VSDI. Our approach underscores the power of a bottom-up computational approach for relating scales of cortical processing. Voltage-sensitive dye imaging (VSDI) is a powerful technique for measuring membrane potential dynamics of neurons but the effective resolution is limited. Here, the authors developed an in silico model of VSDI to probe activity in a biologically detailed reconstruction of rodent neocortical microcircuits.