spike timing and reliability in cortical pyramidal neurons effects of epsc kinetics, input synchronization and background noise on spike timing上升时间和可靠性在皮质锥体神经元epsc动力学的影响,输入在高峰时间同步和背景噪音.pdfVIP

Spike Timing and Reliability in Cortical Pyramidal Neurons: Effects of EPSC Kinetics, Input Synchronization and Background Noise on Spike Timing 1,2 1,3 4 Victor M. Rodriguez-Molina , Ad Aertsen , Detlef H. Heck * 1 Department of Neurobiology and Biophysics, Institute of Biology III, Albert-Ludwigs-University, Freiburg, Germany, 2 Facultad de Medicina, ´ ´ Universidad Autonoma del Estado de Morelos, Cuernavaca, Morelos, Mexico, 3 Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience, Albert-Ludwigs- University, Freiburg, Germany, 4 Department of Anatomy and Neurobiology, University of Tennessee Health Science Center, Memphis, Tennessee, United States of America In vivo studies have shown that neurons in the neocortex can generate action potentials at high temporal precision. The mechanisms controlling timing and reliability of action potential generation in neocortical neurons, however, are still poorly understood. Here we investigated the temporal precision and reliability of spike firing in cortical layer V pyramidal cells at near-threshold membrane potentials. Timing and reliability of spike responses were a function of EPSC kinetics, temporal jitter of population excitatory inputs, and of background synaptic noise. We used somatic current injection to mimic population synaptic input events and measured spike probability and spike time precision (STP), the latter defined as the time window (Dt) holding 80% of response spikes. EPSC rise and decay times were varied over the known physiological spectrum. At spike threshold level, EPSC decay time had a stronger influence on STP than rise time. Generally, STP was highest (#2.45 ms) in response to synchronous compounds of EPSCs with fast rise and decay kinetics. Compounds with