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Gatsby Computational Neuroscience Unit
Alexandra House, 17 Queen Square, LONDON, WC1N 3AR, UK
Tel: +44 (0) 20 7679 1176, Fax +44 (0) 20 7679 1173, admin@gatsby.ucl.ac.uk, www.gatsby.ucl.ac.uk

 

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WORKSHOP ON:
CENTRAL PROBLEMS IN SINGLE CELL COMPUTATION

16-18 September 2002
By invitation only

Venue
B10 Seminar Room, Alexandra House, 17 Queen Square, London, WC1N 3AR

Expanding the range of single-neuron computation
L.F. Abbott, Brandeis University, USA
The firing rate of a neuron is usually expressed as a function of the mean current provided by its synaptic inputs. However, the variance of the total synaptic input also has a significant impact on neuronal firing, and recent experimental and theoretical results allow us to quantify this effect. Including the dependence on both the mean and the variance of the synaptic input greatly expands the range of computations that a neuron can perform on the basis of its firing rate. This work involves a combination of experimental results on cortical neurons in a slice preparation receiving dynamic-clamp-generated synaptic input simulating in vivo conditions, and theoretical work on a variety of neuron models. Single-neuron computations that can arise through the effects of variance include contrast saturation, shifts in contrast response curves due to attention, gain modulation similar to that seen in parietal neurons, intensity-invariant selectivity, and response gating.
Joint work with Frances Chance and Alex Reyes