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Updated: May 16, 2025

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Real-time Electrophysiology: Using Closed-loop Protocols to Probe Neuronal Dynamics and Beyond
Published on: June 24, 2015
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Subthreshold moment analysis of neuronal populations driven by synchronous synaptic inputs.
Logan A Becker1,2, François Baccelli3,4,5, Thibaud Taillefumier1,2,3
1Center for Theoretical and Computational Neuroscience, The University of Texas at Austin, Texas, USA.
Arxiv
|April 1, 2025
Summary
Neuronal activity shows significant variability. Weak synchrony in neural spiking explains voltage fluctuations and covariability, highlighting synchrony
Area of Science:
- Computational Neuroscience
- Systems Neuroscience
Background:
- Neuronal responses exhibit substantial spiking variability even with identical stimuli.
- Subthreshold membrane voltage fluctuations also show significant variability in vivo.
- Prior work linked membrane voltage fluctuations to weak, non-zero spiking synchrony.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate if spiking synchrony explains additional statistical features of neural activity.
- To analyze neuronal voltage covariability and skewness.
- To confirm synchrony's role in cortical variability.
Main Methods:
- Generalized moment analysis of conductance-based neurons.
- Input drives modeled as correlated jump processes.
- Fixed-point techniques from queuing theory for stationary activity analysis.
Main Results:
- Weak but non-zero synchrony consistently explains experimentally reported voltage covariance.
- Weak synchrony also explains voltage skewness.
- Synchrony is a primary driver of cortical variability.
Conclusions:
- Spiking synchrony is a key factor in explaining neuronal voltage variability.
- Physiological neural activity, particularly in the spontaneous regime, emerges as a population-level phenomenon.
- The findings support the role of synchrony in cortical network dynamics.
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