dorsal/arxiv
View SchemaAction Potential Onset Dynamics and the Response Speed of Neuronal Populations
| Authors | B. Naundorf, T. Geisel, F. Wolf |
|---|---|
| Categories | |
| ArXiv ID | q-bio/0411042 |
| URL | https://arxiv.org/abs/q-bio/0411042 |
Abstract
The result of computational operations performed at the single cell level are coded into sequences of action potentials (APs). In the cerebral cortex, due to its columnar organization, large number of neurons are involved in any individual processing task. It is therefore important to understand how the properties of coding at the level of neuronal populations are determined by the dynamics of single neuron AP generation. Here we analyze how the AP generating mechanism determines the speed with which an ensemble of neurons can represent transient stochastic input signals. We analyze a generalization of the $\theta$-neuron, the normal form of the dynamics of Type-I excitable membranes. Using a novel sparse matrix representation of the Fokker-Planck equation, which describes the ensemble dynamics, we calculate the transmission functions for small modulations of the mean current and noise noise amplitude. In the high-frequency limit the transmission function decays as $\omega^{-\gamma}$, where $\gamma$ surprisingly depends on the phase $\theta_{s}$ at which APs are emitted. In a physiologically plausible regime up to 1kHz the typical response speed is, however, independent of the high-frequency limit and is set by the rapidness of the AP onset, as revealed by the full transmission function. In this regime modulations of the noise amplitude can be transmitted faithfully up to much higher frequencies than modulations in the mean input current. We finally show that the linear response approach used is valid for a large regime of stimulus amplitudes.
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"abstract": "The result of computational operations performed at the single cell level are\ncoded into sequences of action potentials (APs). In the cerebral cortex, due to\nits columnar organization, large number of neurons are involved in any\nindividual processing task. It is therefore important to understand how the\nproperties of coding at the level of neuronal populations are determined by the\ndynamics of single neuron AP generation. Here we analyze how the AP generating\nmechanism determines the speed with which an ensemble of neurons can represent\ntransient stochastic input signals. We analyze a generalization of the\n$\\theta$-neuron, the normal form of the dynamics of Type-I excitable membranes.\nUsing a novel sparse matrix representation of the Fokker-Planck equation, which\ndescribes the ensemble dynamics, we calculate the transmission functions for\nsmall modulations of the mean current and noise noise amplitude. In the\nhigh-frequency limit the transmission function decays as $\\omega^{-\\gamma}$,\nwhere $\\gamma$ surprisingly depends on the phase $\\theta_{s}$ at which APs are\nemitted. In a physiologically plausible regime up to 1kHz the typical response\nspeed is, however, independent of the high-frequency limit and is set by the\nrapidness of the AP onset, as revealed by the full transmission function. In\nthis regime modulations of the noise amplitude can be transmitted faithfully up\nto much higher frequencies than modulations in the mean input current. We\nfinally show that the linear response approach used is valid for a large regime\nof stimulus amplitudes.",
"arxiv_id": "q-bio/0411042",
"authors": [
"B. Naundorf",
"T. Geisel",
"F. Wolf"
],
"categories": [
"q-bio.NC",
"cond-mat.dis-nn"
],
"title": "Action Potential Onset Dynamics and the Response Speed of Neuronal Populations",
"url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/q-bio/0411042"
},
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