Dendritic slow dynamics enables localized cortical activity to switch between mobile and immobile modes with noisy background input.

ABSTRACT: Mounting lines of evidence suggest the significant computational ability of a single neuron empowered by active dendritic dynamics. This motivates us to study what functionality can be acquired by a network of such neurons. The present paper studies how such rich single-neuron dendritic dynamics affects the network dynamics, a question which has scarcely been specifically studied to date. We simulate neurons with active dendrites networked locally like cortical pyramidal neurons, and find that naturally arising localized activity--called a bump--can be in two distinct modes, mobile or immobile. The mode can be switched back and forth by transient input to the cortical network. Interestingly, this functionality arises only if each neuron is equipped with the observed slow dendritic dynamics

SUBMITTER: Kurashige H 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3169558 | biostudies-literature | 2011

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature