Recurrent excitation in neocortical cells
Abstract
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.
Additional Information
16 February 1995; accepted 5 June 1995. We thank the U.S. Office of Naval Research for their long-term support of this work. In addition this work was supported by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, the Gatsby Foundation, the Medical Research Council, the National Institute of Mental Health, the National Science Foundation, the European Community, the Human Frontiers Science Program, the Wellcome Trust, and the Royal Society. We thank J. Anderson for reconstructions of neurons in cat striate cortex and G. Holt for help with the graphics.Additional details
- Eprint ID
- 40361
- DOI
- 10.1126/science.7638624
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20130816-103139423
- U.S. Office of Naval Research
- U.S. Air Force Office of Scientific Research
- Gatsby Foundation
- Medical Research Council
- National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)
- National Science Foundation
- European Community
- Human Frontiers Science Program
- Wellcome Trust
- Royal Society
- Created
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2010-03-11Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
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2021-11-09Created from EPrint's last_modified field
- Caltech groups
- Koch Laboratory (KLAB)