DOI: 10.1523/jneurosci.23-32-10388.2003. Barrages of Synaptic Activity Control the Gain and Sensitivity of Cortical Neurons

Barrages of Synaptic Activity Control the Gain and Sensitivity of Cortical Neurons

10.1523/jneurosci.23-32-10388.2003

Crossref journal-article

Society for Neuroscience

The Journal of Neuroscience (393)

Abstract

Ongoing synaptic activity, ever present in cortical neurons, may vary widely in its amplitude and characteristics, potentially having a strong influence on neuronal processing. Intracellular recordings in layer 5 pyramidal cells in prefrontal and visual cortical slices maintainedin vitrorevealed spontaneous periods of synaptic bombardment. Testing the responsiveness of these cortical cells to synaptic inputs or the injection of artificial excitatory postsynaptic conductances of various amplitudes revealed that background synaptic activity dramatically increased the probability of response to small inputs, decreased the slope of the input-output curve, and decreased both the latency and jitter of action potential activation. Examining the effects of different components of synaptic barrages (namely, depolarization, increase in membrane conductance, and increase in membrane potential variance) revealed that the effects observed were dominated by the membrane depolarization and increase in variance. Depolarization increased the peak cross-correlation between injected complexin vivo-like waveforms through enhancement of responsiveness to small inputs, whereas increases in variance did so through a shift in firing mode from one of threshold detection to probabilistic discharge. These results indicate that rapid increases in neuronal responsiveness, as well as increases in spike timing precision, can be achieved through balanced barrages of excitatory and inhibitory synaptic activity.

Bibliography

Shu, Y., Hasenstaub, A., Badoual, M., Bal, T., & McCormick, D. A. (2003). Barrages of Synaptic Activity Control the Gain and Sensitivity of Cortical Neurons. The Journal of Neuroscience, 23(32), 10388â10401.

Authors 5

Yousheng Shu (first)
Andrea Hasenstaub (additional)
Mathilde Badoual (additional)
Thierry Bal (additional)
David A. McCormick (additional)

References 47 Referenced 255

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Dates

Type	When
Created	7 years, 4 months ago (April 13, 2018, 6:30 p.m.)
Deposited	2 years, 4 months ago (April 13, 2023, 11:49 a.m.)
Indexed	1 month, 3 weeks ago (July 16, 2025, 9:33 a.m.)
Issued	21 years, 9 months ago (Nov. 12, 2003)
Published	21 years, 9 months ago (Nov. 12, 2003)
Published Online	21 years, 9 months ago (Nov. 12, 2003)
Published Print	21 years, 9 months ago (Nov. 12, 2003)

Funders 0

None

BibTeX

@article{Shu_2003, title={Barrages of Synaptic Activity Control the Gain and Sensitivity of Cortical Neurons}, volume={23}, ISSN={1529-2401}, url={http://dx.doi.org/10.1523/jneurosci.23-32-10388.2003}, DOI={10.1523/jneurosci.23-32-10388.2003}, number={32}, journal={The Journal of Neuroscience}, publisher={Society for Neuroscience}, author={Shu, Yousheng and Hasenstaub, Andrea and Badoual, Mathilde and Bal, Thierry and McCormick, David A.}, year={2003}, month=nov, pages={10388–10401} }

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