Poulet JF Fernandez LM Crochet S Petersen CC 2012 We investigated the impact of thalamus on ongoing cortical activity in the awake, behaving mouse. We demonstrate that the desynchronized cortical state during active behavior is driven by a centrally generated increase in thalamic action potential firing, which can also be mimicked by optogenetic stimulation of the thalamus. The thalamus therefore is key in controlling cortical states. https://sonar.ch/global/documents/104872 eng info:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/doi/10.1038/nn.3035 info:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/pmid/22267163 Nature neuroscience. - 2012 Action Potentials Afferent Pathways Animals Channelrhodopsins Cortical Synchronization Denervation Electric Stimulation Fourier Analysis Mice Mice, Transgenic Neurons Somatosensory Cortex Thalamus Vibrissae Wakefulness Thalamic control of cortical states. http://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_6501