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Excitability: Types I, II, and III

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Encyclopedia of Computational Neuroscience

Definition

In 1948, Hodgkin distinguished between three classes of excitability on the basis of spiking patterns observed in crustacean axons. This classification scheme is still applied today because it captures fundamental differences in excitability that stem from how action potentials, or spikes, are generated. The nonlinear dynamical mechanism responsible for spike initiation in each cell class has been worked out, and the biophysical implementation of those dynamical mechanisms is reasonably well understood. Moreover, the differences in spike initiation that define each class confer differences in metrics like the phase-response curve (PRC) and spike-triggered average (STA), meaning that this simple classification scheme is predictive of important differences in neural coding.

Detailed Description

Historical Background

Based on single fiber recordings from the crab Carcinus maenas, Hodgkin (1948) identified three different classes of excitability. Class 1 axons were capable of...

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References

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Neurosciences and Mental Health, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, Canada

    Dr. Steven A. Prescott

  2. Department of Physiology, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada

    Dr. Steven A. Prescott

Authors
  1. Dr. Steven A. Prescott
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Steven A. Prescott .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Atlanta, Georgia, USA

    Dieter Jaeger

  2. Department of Biomedical Engineering, Florida International University, Miami, Florida, USA

    Ranu Jung

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© 2014 Springer Science+Business Media New York

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Prescott, S.A. (2014). Excitability: Types I, II, and III. In: Jaeger, D., Jung, R. (eds) Encyclopedia of Computational Neuroscience. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-7320-6_151-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-7320-6_151-1

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4614-7320-6

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