Imbalanced amplification: A mechanism of amplification and suppression from local imbalance of excitation and inhibition in cortical circuits.

ABSTRACT: Understanding the relationship between external stimuli and the spiking activity of cortical populations is a central problem in neuroscience. Dense recurrent connectivity in local cortical circuits can lead to counterintuitive response properties, raising the question of whether there are simple arithmetical rules for relating circuits' connectivity structure to their response properties. One such arithmetic is provided by the mean field theory of balanced networks, which is derived in a limit where excitatory and inhibitory synaptic currents precisely balance on average. However, balanced network theory is not applicable to some biologically relevant connectivity structures. We show that cortical circuits with such structure are susceptible to an amplification mechanism arising when exci

SUBMITTER: Ebsch C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5871018 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature