Fluctuations of the Impulse Rate in Limulus Eccentric Cells

Fluctuations in the discharge of impulses were studied in eccentric cells of the compound eye of the horseshoe crab, Limulus polyphemus. A theory is presented which accounts for the variability in the response of the eccentric cell to light. The main idea of this theory is that the source of randomness in the impulse rate is "noise" in the generator potential. Another essential aspect of the theory is that the process which transforms the generator potential "noise" into the impulse rate fluctuations may be treated as a linear filter. These ideas lead directly to Fourier analysis of the fluctuations. Experimental verification of theoretical predictions was obtained by calculation of the variance spectrum of the impulse rate. The variance spectrum of the impulse rate is shown to be the filtered variance spectrum of the generator potential.

[1]  ROBERT SHAPLEY,et al.  Fluctuations in the Response to Light of Visual Neurones in Limulus , 1969, Nature.

[2]  C. Wiersma,et al.  The functional relation between retinal cells and optic nerve in Limulus , 1954 .

[3]  V. Mountcastle,et al.  NEURAL ACTIVITY IN MECHANORECEPTIVE CUTANEOUS AFFERENTS: STIMULUS-RESPONSE RELATIONS, WEBER FUNCTIONS, AND INFORMATION TRANSMISSION. , 1965, Journal of neurophysiology.

[4]  R. Stein.  Some models of neuronal variability. , 1967, Biophysical journal.

[5]  P. Lewis,et al.  Historical notes on the fast Fourier transform , 1967, IEEE Transactions on Audio and Electroacoustics.

[6]  R. Stein,et al.  Differences in Variability of Discharge Frequency between Primary and Secondary Muscle Spindle Afferent Endings of the Cat , 1965, Nature.

[7]  C. D. Geisler,et al.  A stochastic model of the repetitive activity of neurons. , 1966, Biophysical journal.

[8]  Emanuel Parzen,et al.  Stochastic Processes , 1962 .

[9]  R. Barlow.  Inhibitory Fields in the Limulus Lateral Eye , 1969, The Journal of general physiology.

[10]  H. Barlow,et al.  Changes in the maintained discharge with adaptation level in the cat retina , 1969, The Journal of physiology.

[11]  Bruce W. Knight,et al.  A Quantitative Description of the Dynamics of Excitation and Inhibition in the Eye of Limulus , 1970, The Journal of general physiology.

[12]  Alexander Joseph.  Book reviewDischarge patterns of single fibers in the cat's auditory nerve: Nelson Yuan-Sheng Kiang, with the assistance of Takeshi Watanabe, Eleanor C. Thomas and Louise F. Clark: Research Monograph no. 35. Cambridge, Mass., The M.I.T. Press, 1965 , 1967 .

[13]  D. G. Watts,et al.  Spectral analysis and its applications , 1968 .

[14]  V. J. Wulff,et al.  Light-Initiated Responses of Retinula and Eccentric Cells in the Limulus Lateral Eye , 1965, The Journal of general physiology.

[15]  H K Hartline,et al.  Variability of interspike intervals in optic nerve fibers of Limulus: effect of light and dark adaptation. , 1968, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[16]  M. Fuortes.  Initiation of impulses in visual cells of Limulus , 1959, The Journal of physiology.

[17]  F. Dodge,et al.  Voltage Noise in Limulus Visual Cells , 1968, Science.

[18]  I. Whitfield.  Discharge Patterns of Single Fibers in the Cat's Auditory Nerve , 1966 .

[19]  T. Teichmann,et al.  The Measurement of Power Spectra , 1960 .

[20]  S. Rice.  Mathematical analysis of random noise , 1944 .

[21]  P. Welch.  The use of fast Fourier transform for the estimation of power spectra: A method based on time averaging over short, modified periodograms , 1967 .

[22]  Benedict Delisle Burns,et al.  The uncertain nervous system , 1968 .

[23]  P. Matthews,et al.  The regularity of primary and secondary muscle spindle afferent discharges , 1969, The Journal of physiology.

[24]  R. Shapley.  Variability in the Firing of Nerve Impulses in Eccentric Cells of the Limulus Eye , 1970 .

[25]  N Milkman,et al.  A DIGITAL PROGRAMMER FOR STIMULI AND COMPUTER CONTROL IN NEUROPHYSIOLOGICAL EXPERIMENTS * , 1966, Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences.

[26]  J. Kiefer,et al.  An Introduction to Stochastic Processes. , 1956 .

[27]  J. Nicholls,et al.  Spontaneous fluctuations of excitability in the muscle spindle of the frog , 1953, The Journal of physiology.

[28]  A. Adolph.  Spontaneous Slow Potential Fluctuations in the Limulus Photoreceptor , 1964, The Journal of general physiology.