PMID- 16870323
OWN - NLM
STAT- MEDLINE
DCOM- 20061130
LR  - 20061003
IS  - 0303-2647 (Print)
IS  - 0303-2647 (Linking)
VI  - 86
IP  - 1-3
DP  - 2006 Oct-Dec
TI  - Multisynaptic activity in a pyramidal neuron model and neural code.
PG  - 18-26
AB  - The highly irregular firing of mammalian cortical pyramidal neurons is one of the 
      most striking observation of the brain activity. This result affects greatly the 
      discussion on the neural code, i.e. how the brain codes information transmitted 
      along the different cortical stages. In fact it seems to be in favor of one of 
      the two main hypotheses about this issue, named the rate code. But the supporters 
      of the contrasting hypothesis, the temporal code, consider this evidence 
      inconclusive. We discuss here a leaky integrate-and-fire model of a hippocampal 
      pyramidal neuron intended to be biologically sound to investigate the genesis of 
      the irregular pyramidal firing and to give useful information about the coding 
      problem. To this aim, the complete set of excitatory and inhibitory synapses 
      impinging on such a neuron has been taken into account. The firing activity of 
      the neuron model has been studied by computer simulation both in basic conditions 
      and allowing brief periods of over-stimulation in specific regions of its 
      synaptic constellation. Our results show neuronal firing conditions similar to 
      those observed in experimental investigations on pyramidal cortical neurons. In 
      particular, the variation coefficient (CV) computed from the inter-spike 
      intervals (ISIs) in our simulations for basic conditions is close to the unity as 
      that computed from experimental data. Our simulation shows also different 
      behaviors in firing sequences for different frequencies of stimulation.
FAU - Ventriglia, Francesco
AU  - Ventriglia F
AD  - Istituto di Cibernetica E Caianiello del CNR, Via Campi Flegrei 34, Pozzuoli 
      (NA), Italy. franco@ulisse.cib.na.cnr.it
FAU - Di Maio, Vito
AU  - Di Maio V
LA  - eng
PT  - Journal Article
DEP - 20060407
PL  - Ireland
TA  - Biosystems
JT  - Bio Systems
JID - 0430773
SB  - IM
MH  - Computer Simulation
MH  - Membrane Potentials
MH  - *Models, Neurological
MH  - Neurons/*metabolism
MH  - Synapses/*metabolism
EDAT- 2006/07/28 09:00
MHDA- 2006/12/09 09:00
CRDT- 2006/07/28 09:00
PHST- 2005/12/15 00:00 [received]
PHST- 2006/02/19 00:00 [revised]
PHST- 2006/02/22 00:00 [accepted]
PHST- 2006/07/28 09:00 [pubmed]
PHST- 2006/12/09 09:00 [medline]
PHST- 2006/07/28 09:00 [entrez]
AID - S0303-2647(06)00063-3 [pii]
AID - 10.1016/j.biosystems.2006.02.014 [doi]
PST - ppublish
SO  - Biosystems. 2006 Oct-Dec;86(1-3):18-26. doi: 10.1016/j.biosystems.2006.02.014. 
      Epub 2006 Apr 7.