Department of Neuroscience, Physiology, and Pharmacology, University College London, London, UK.
J Neuroendocrinol. 2010 Dec;22(12):1239-50. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2826.2010.02068.x.
Reading the spike coding of hypothalamic neurones presents a considerable challenge because they exhibit highly irregular firing patterns. Electrophysiologists working in the motor and sensory systems, in which neurones fire more regularly, have devised satisfactory methods to describe the firing of cells, although the statistical assumptions that underlie the methods do not apply to hypothalamic neurones. Measurement of neural activity is nevertheless vital to characterise the activity of neuroendocrine cells. It has thus become necessary to develop methods suitable for the analysis of the highly irregular spike discharge patterns of both spontaneous and stimulus-evoked firing of hypothalamic neurones. We review techniques used to meet this challenge and demonstrate their considerable capacity to address important physiological questions. We also introduce a novel approach for valid statistical estimation of the information conveyed by the response of a single neurone to a periodic stimulus. The approach demonstrated significant diurnal rhythms of synaptic connectivity between hypothalamic nuclei.
阅读下丘脑神经元的尖峰编码是一项相当大的挑战，因为它们表现出高度不规则的发射模式。在运动和感觉系统中工作的电生理学家，其神经元的发射更为规律，已经设计出了令人满意的方法来描述细胞的发射，尽管这些方法所基于的统计假设并不适用于下丘脑神经元。然而，对神经活动的测量对于描述神经内分泌细胞的活动仍然至关重要。因此，有必要开发适合分析下丘脑神经元自发和刺激诱发的高度不规则尖峰放电模式的方法。我们回顾了用于应对这一挑战的技术，并展示了它们在解决重要生理问题方面的巨大能力。我们还介绍了一种新的方法，用于对单个神经元对周期性刺激的反应所传递的信息进行有效的统计估计。该方法证明了下丘脑核之间的突触连接存在显著的昼夜节律。
