Engel Tatiana A, Helbig Brian, Russell David F, Schimansky-Geier Lutz, Neiman Alexander B
Department of Neurobiology, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut 06510, USA.
Phys Rev E Stat Nonlin Soft Matter Phys. 2009 Aug;80(2 Pt 1):021919. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevE.80.021919. Epub 2009 Aug 18.
We study the effect of noisy oscillatory input on the signal discrimination by spontaneously firing neurons. Using analytically tractable model, we contrast signal detection in two situations: (i) when the neuron is driven by coherent oscillations and (ii) when the coherence of oscillations is destroyed. Analytical calculations revealed a region in the parameter space of the model where oscillations act to reduce the variability of neuronal firing and to enhance the discriminability of weak signals. These analytical results are employed to unveil a possible role of coherent oscillations in peripheral electrosensory system of paddlefish in improvement of detection of weak stimuli. The proposed mechanism may be relevant to a wide range of phenomena involving coherently driven oscillators.
我们研究了噪声振荡输入对自发放电神经元信号辨别能力的影响。通过使用易于进行分析处理的模型，我们对比了两种情况下的信号检测：（i）神经元由相干振荡驱动时；（ii）振荡的相干性被破坏时。分析计算揭示了模型参数空间中的一个区域，在该区域中振荡起到降低神经元放电变异性并增强弱信号辨别能力的作用。这些分析结果被用于揭示相干振荡在匙吻鲟外周电感应系统中对改善弱刺激检测可能发挥的作用。所提出的机制可能与涉及相干驱动振荡器的广泛现象相关。
