IUBio

Basic questions about neurons

Mark Pickering mpicke at ucd.ie
Mon Dec 18 09:51:19 EST 2000


"Mark Pickering" <mpicke at ucd.ie> wrote in message
news:newscache$eiqr5g$sd5$1 at weblab.ucd.ie...
>
> "Richard Norman" <rsnorman at mediaone.net> wrote in message
> news:V3e_5.134$ZC4.12725 at typhoon.mw.mediaone.net...
>
> >
> > The classical view of spike trains is that information is primarily
> > encoded simply in the average frequency of potentials.  There are
> > cases, as in the control of crustacean muscle, where the synapse
> > (actually neuromuscular junction) is highly facilitating. In that case,
> > patterned activity, as in two or three pulses per burst in a series of
> > bursts can produce significantly different results from a uniformly
> > distributed spike train.  Even a single action potential interpolated
> > into a uniform spike train can make a significant difference.  And
> > the medial superior olivary nucleus in the mammalian auditory
> > system is a "coincidence detector" identifying simultaneity of
> > inputs from the two ears.  It can detect time differences as fine
> > as 10 microseconds.  So timing does matter.
>
> I am very interested in neural coding myself. I wonder do you have a
> reference for the crustacean muscle work you mentioned. It sounds
> fascinating.
>
>

Actually, if you know of any other particularly good studies in this area,
I'd love any information you have.








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