Effects of Input Synchrony on the Firing Rate of a Three-Conductance Cortical Neuron Model

For a model cortical neuron with three active conductances, we studied the dependence of the firing rate on the degree of synchrony in its synaptic inputs. The effect of synchrony was determined as a function of three parameters: number of inputs, average input frequency, and the synaptic strength (maximal unitary conductance change). Synchrony alone could increase the cell's firing rate when the product of these three parameters was below a critical value. But for higher values of the three parameters, synchrony could reduce firing rate. Instantaneous responses to time-varying input firing rates were close to predictions from steady-state responses when input synchrony was high, but fell below steady-state responses when input synchrony was low. Effectiveness of synaptic transmission, measured by the peak area of cross-correlations between input and output spikes, increased with increasing synchrony.

[1]  A. Reyes,et al.  Effects of transient depolarizing potentials on the firing rate of cat neocortical neurons. , 1993, Journal of neurophysiology.

[2]  J. Donoghue,et al.  Oscillations in local field potentials of the primate motor cortex during voluntary movement. , 1993, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[3]  K. Stratford,et al.  Synaptic transmission between individual pyramidal neurons of the rat visual cortex in vitro , 1991, The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience.

[4]  C. Koch,et al.  Synaptic background activity influences spatiotemporal integration in single pyramidal cells. , 1991, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[5]  E. Fetz,et al.  Coherent 25- to 35-Hz oscillations in the sensorimotor cortex of awake behaving monkeys. , 1992, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[6]  C. Gray,et al.  Visually evoked oscillations of membrane potential in cells of cat visual cortex. , 1992, Science.

[7]  Moshe Abeles,et al.  Corticonics: Neural Circuits of Cerebral Cortex , 1991 .

[8]  A. Thomson,et al.  Voltage-dependent currents prolong single-axon postsynaptic potentials in layer III pyramidal neurons in rat neocortical slices. , 1988, Journal of neurophysiology.

[9]  P. Schwindt,et al.  Repetitive firing in layer V neurons from cat neocortex in vitro. , 1984, Journal of neurophysiology.

[10]  Marius Usher,et al.  The Effect of Synchronized Inputs at the Single Neuron Level , 1994, Neural Computation.

[11]  Matthew A. Wilson,et al.  The simulation of large-scale neural networks , 1989 .

[12]  M. Abeles.  Role of the cortical neuron: integrator or coincidence detector? , 1982, Israel journal of medical sciences.

[13]  Paul Antoine Salin,et al.  Spatial and temporal coherence in cortico-cortical connections: a cross-correlation study in areas 17 and 18 in the cat. , 1992, Visual neuroscience.

[14]  P König,et al.  Synchronization of oscillatory neuronal responses between striate and extrastriate visual cortical areas of the cat. , 1991, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[15]  W. Freeman,et al.  Spatial patterns of visual cortical fast EEG during conditioned reflex in a rhesus monkey , 1987, Brain Research.

[16]  Shaul Hestrin,et al.  Activation and desensitization of glutamate-activated channels mediating fast excitatory synaptic currents in the visual cortex , 1992, Neuron.

[17]  W. Singer,et al.  Stimulus-specific neuronal oscillations in orientation columns of cat visual cortex. , 1989, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[18]  E. Fetz,et al.  Synaptic Interactions between Cortical Neurons , 1991 .

[19]  T. Sejnowski,et al.  Simulations of cortical pyramidal neurons synchronized by inhibitory interneurons. , 1991, Journal of neurophysiology.

[20]  J. Bouyer,et al.  Fast fronto-parietal rhythms during combined focused attentive behaviour and immobility in cat: cortical and thalamic localizations. , 1981, Electroencephalography and clinical neurophysiology.

[21]  Terrence J. Sejnowski,et al.  Simulations of Synaptic Integration in Neocortical Pyramidal Cells , 1993 .

[22]  R. Llinás,et al.  Coherent 40-Hz oscillation characterizes dream state in humans. , 1993, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[23]  P. König,et al.  Correlated firing in sensory-motor systems , 1995, Current Opinion in Neurobiology.

[24]  William R. Softky,et al.  The highly irregular firing of cortical cells is inconsistent with temporal integration of random EPSPs , 1993, The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience.

[25]  Eberhard E. Fetz,et al.  Effects of Input Synchrony on the Response of a Model Neuron , 1993 .

[26]  Eberhard E. Fetz,et al.  Effects of Firing Synchrony on Signal Propagation in Layered Networks , 1989, NIPS.