Interlaminar differences of spike activation threshold in the auditory cortex of the rat

The neural circuits of the auditory cortex are a substrate for the dual purpose of representing and storing the auditory signal on one hand, and sending its relevant features to other cortical and subcortical areas on the other hand. The ability to process and transform the signal crucially depends on achievement of the neuronal spike threshold following spatiotemporal summation of the synaptic signals. We used patch-clamp recording in a thin slice preparation to compare neuronal responses to current injection of layer II/III and layer V neurons. We found that while the two classes of neurons do not differ in passive neuronal properties, layer II/III neurons possess a lower firing threshold relative to layer V neurons (-44.8 +/- 2.4 mV vs. -34.3 +/- 4.0 mV). We speculate that a lower spiking threshold in layer II/III neurons might favor local intracolumnar activation for representation and storage of the auditory information whereas a more positive spiking threshold for layer V neurons may prevent unnecessary cortical spread of a scarcely processed signal.