Biomedical subjects

Frances S Chance

Publications and source records attributed to Frances S Chance.

3 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2006

Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis for characterizing synaptic efficacy.

The role of background synaptic activity in cortical processing has recently received much attention. How do individual neurons extract information when embedded in a noisy background? When examining the impact of a synaptic input on postsynaptic firing, it is important to distinguish a change in overall firing probability from a true change in neuronal sensitivity to a particular input (synaptic efficacy) that corresponds to a change in detection performance. Here we study the impact of background synaptic input on neuronal sensitivity to individual synaptic inputs using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis. We use the area under the ROC curve as a measure of synaptic efficacy, here defined as the ability of a postsynaptic action potential to identify a particular synaptic input event. An advantage of using ROC analysis to measure synaptic efficacy is that it provides a measure that is independent of postsynaptic firing rate. Furthermore, changes in mean excitation or inhibition, although affecting overall firing probability, do not modulate synaptic efficacy when measured in this way. Changes in overall conductance also affect firing probability but not this form of synaptic efficacy. Input noise, here defined as the variance of the input current, does modulate synaptic efficacy, however. This effect persists when the change in input variance is coupled with a change in conductance (as would result from changing background activity).

Algorithms↗

PubMed2005

Drivers and modulators from push-pull and balanced synaptic input.

In 1998, Sherman and Guillery proposed that there are two types of inputs to cortical neurons; drivers and modulators. These two forms of input are required to explain how, for example, sensory driven responses are controlled and modified by attention and other internally generated gating signals. One might imagine that driver signals are carried by fast ionotropic receptors, whereas modulators correspond to slower metabotropic receptors. Instead, we have proposed a novel mechanism by which both driver and modulator inputs could be carried by transmission through the same types of ionotropic receptors. In this scheme, the distinction between driver and modulator inputs is functional and changeable rather than anatomical and fixed. Driver inputs are carried by excitation and inhibition acting in a push-pull manner. This means that increases in excitation are accompanied by decreases in inhibition and vice versa. Modulators correspond to excitation and inhibition that covary so that they increase or decrease together. Theoretical and experimental work has shown that such an arrangement modulates the gain of a neuron, rather than driving it to respond. Constructing drivers and modulators in this manner allows individual excitatory synaptic inputs to play either role, and indeed to switch between roles, depending on how they are linked with inhibition.

Afferent Pathways↗

PubMed2002

Gain modulation from background synaptic input.

Gain modulation is a prominent feature of neuronal activity recorded in behaving animals, but the mechanism by which it occurs is unknown. By introducing a barrage of excitatory and inhibitory synaptic conductances that mimics conditions encountered in vivo into pyramidal neurons in slices of rat somatosensory cortex, we show that the gain of a neuronal response to excitatory drive can be modulated by varying the level of "background" synaptic input. Simultaneously increasing both excitatory and inhibitory background firing rates in a balanced manner results in a divisive gain modulation of the neuronal response without appreciable signal-independent increases in firing rate or spike-train variability. These results suggest that, within active cortical circuits, the overall level of synaptic input to a neuron acts as a gain control signal that modulates responsiveness to excitatory drive.

Action Potentials↗