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Neural Code and Irregular Spike Trains

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Book cover Brain, Vision, and Artificial Intelligence (BVAI 2005)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNIP,volume 3704))

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Abstract

The problem of the code used by brain to transmit information along the different cortical stages is yet unsolved. Two main hypotheses named the rate code and the temporal code have had more attention, even though the highly irregular firing of the cortical pyramidal neurons seems to be more consistent with the first hypothesis. In the present article, we present a model of cortical pyramidal neuron intended to be biologically plausible and to give more information on the neural coding problem. The model takes into account the complete set of excitatory and inhibitory inputs impinging on a pyramidal neuron and simulates the output behaviour when all the huge synaptic machinery is active. Our results show neuronal firing conditions, very similar to those observed in in vivo experiments on pyramidal cortical neurons. In particular, the variation coefficient (CV) computed for the Inter-Spike-Intervals in our computational experiments is very close to the unity and quite similar to that experimentally observed. The bias toward the rate code hypothesis is reinforced by these results.

This work has been partially supported by a project grant given by Istituto di Cibernetica E. Caianiello for the year 2005.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Istituto di Cibernetica E. Caianiello, CNR Via Campi Flegrei 34, 80078, Pozzuoli (NA), Italy

    Francesco Ventriglia & Vito Di Maio

Authors
  1. Francesco Ventriglia
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  2. Vito Di Maio
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Istituto di Cibernetica “Eduardo Caianiello”, CNR, Pozzuoli (NA), Italy

    Massimo De Gregorio

  2. Istituto di Cibernetica “E. Caianiello” del CNR, Via Campi Flegrei, 34, 80078, Pozzuoli (NA), Italy

    Vito Di Maio

  3. Institute of Cybernetics “E. Caianiello”, CNR, Pozzuoli, (Naples), Italy

    Maria Frucci

  4. Istituto di Cibernetica “Eduardo Caianiello”, CNR, Pozzuoli, Italy

    Carlo Musio

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© 2005 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Ventriglia, F., Di Maio, V. (2005). Neural Code and Irregular Spike Trains. In: De Gregorio, M., Di Maio, V., Frucci, M., Musio, C. (eds) Brain, Vision, and Artificial Intelligence. BVAI 2005. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 3704. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/11565123_9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/11565123_9

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-29282-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-32029-6

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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