Douglas R J, Koch C, Mahowald M, Martin K A, Suarez H H
Institute of Neuroinformatics, University and Eidgenössiche Technische Hochschule, Zürich Switzerland.
Science. 1995 Aug 18;269(5226):981-5. doi: 10.1126/science.7638624.
The majority of synapses in the mammalian cortex originate from cortical neurons. Indeed, the largest input to cortical cells comes from neighboring excitatory cells. However, most models of cortical development and processing do not reflect the anatomy and physiology of feedback excitation and are restricted to serial feedforward excitation. This report describes how populations of neurons in cat visual cortex can use excitatory feedback, characterized as an effective "network conductance", to amplify their feedforward input signals and demonstrates how neuronal discharge can be kept proportional to stimulus strength despite strong, recurrent connections that threaten to cause runaway excitation. These principles are incorporated into models of cortical direction and orientation selectivity that emphasize the basic design principles of cortical architectures.
哺乳动物皮层中的大多数突触起源于皮层神经元。实际上，皮层细胞的最大输入来自相邻的兴奋性细胞。然而，大多数皮层发育和处理模型并未反映反馈兴奋的解剖学和生理学特征，而是局限于串行前馈兴奋。本报告描述了猫视觉皮层中的神经元群体如何利用被表征为有效“网络电导”的兴奋性反馈来放大其前馈输入信号，并展示了尽管存在可能导致失控兴奋的强递归连接，神经元放电如何仍能与刺激强度保持成比例。这些原理被纳入强调皮层结构基本设计原则的皮层方向和方向选择性模型中。
