Unique features of action potential initiation in cortical neurons.

Neurons process and encode information by generating sequences of action potentials. For all spiking neurons, the encoding of single-neuron computations into sequences of spikes is biophysically determined by the cell's action-potential-generating mechanism. It has recently been discovered that apparently minor modifications of this mechanism can qualitatively change the nature of neuronal encoding. Here we quantitatively analyse the dynamics of action potential initiation in cortical neurons in vivo, in vitro and in computational models. Unexpectedly, key features of the initiation dynamics of cortical neuron action potentials--their rapid initiation and variable onset potential--are outside the range of behaviours described by the classical Hodgkin-Huxley theory. We propose a new model based on the cooperative activation of sodium channels that reproduces the observed dynamics of action potential initiation. This new model predicts that Hodgkin-Huxley-type dynamics of action potential initiation can be induced by artificially decreasing the effective density of sodium channels. In vitro experiments confirm this prediction, supporting the hypothesis that cooperative sodium channel activation underlies the dynamics of action potential initiation in cortical neurons.

Dynamical response properties of neocortical neuron ensembles: multiplicative versus additive noise.

To understand the mechanisms of fast information processing in the brain, it is necessary to determine how rapidly populations of neurons can respond to incoming stimuli in a noisy environment. Recently, it has been shown experimentally that an ensemble of neocortical neurons can track a time-varying input current in the presence of additive correlated noise very fast, up to frequencies of several hundred hertz. Modulations in the firing rate of presynaptic neuron populations affect, however, not only the mean but also the variance of the synaptic input to postsynaptic cells. It has been argued that such modulations of the noise intensity (multiplicative modulation) can be tracked much faster than modulations of the mean input current (additive modulation). Here, we compare the response characteristics of an ensemble of neocortical neurons for both modulation schemes. We injected sinusoidally modulated noisy currents (additive and multiplicative modulation) into layer V pyramidal neurons of the rat somatosensory cortex and measured the trial and ensemble-averaged spike responses for a wide range of stimulus frequencies. For both modulation paradigms, we observed low-pass behavior. The cutoff frequencies were markedly high, considerably higher than the average firing rates. We demonstrate that modulations in the variance can be tracked significantly faster than modulations in the mean input. Extremely fast stimuli (up to 1 kHz) can be reliably tracked, provided the stimulus amplitudes are sufficiently high.

Signal detection by means of phase coherence induced through phase resetting.

Detection and location of moving prey utilizing electrosense or mechanosense is a strategy commonly followed by animals which cannot rely on visual sense or hearing. In this paper we consider the possibility to detect the source of a localized stimulus that travels along a chain of detectors at constant speed. The detectors are autonomous oscillators whose frequencies have a given natural spread. The detection mechanism is based on phase coherence which is built up by phase resetting induced by the passing stimulus.

Universal attractors of reversible aggregate-reorganization processes.

We analyze a general class of reversible aggregate-reorganization processes. These processes are shown to exhibit globally attracting equilibrium distributions, which are universal, i.e., identical for large classes of models. Furthermore, the analysis implies that, for studies of equilibrium properties of any such process, computationally expensive reorganization dynamics such as random walks can be replaced by more efficient yet simpler methods. As a particular application, our results explain the recent observation of the formation of similar fractal aggregates from different initial structures by diffusive reorganization [M. Filoche and B. Sapoval, Phys. Rev. Lett. 85, 5118 (2000)].