title: Properties of the evoked spatio-temporal electrical activity in neuronal assemblies.
abstract: Properties of neural computation were studied in two types of neuronal networks: isolated leech ganglia and neuronal cultures of dissociated cortical neurons from neonatal rats. With appropriate experimental set-ups it was possible to obtain a precise description of the spread of excitation induced by specific inputs. The evoked spatio-temporal electrical activity was characterized by large variability and the electrical activity of neurons activated by the same stimulation was found to be statistically independent to a high degree. The variability presumably originates from basic properties of synaptic transmission, which is stochastic in nature. As a consequence, the large variability of the evoked spatio-temporal electrical activity appears to be a general property of neural computation and a typical feature of neuronal assemblies. It is shown, however, that the observed statistical independence of co-activated neurons may be used to reduce the effects of variability by appropriately averaging or pooling the electrical activity.
authors.affiliation: SISSA, Trieste, Italy.
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Pinato
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Parodi
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Bisso
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Macrì
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Kawana
authors.forename: Y
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Jimbo
authors.forename: V
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Torre
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D019295:Computational Biology; D005071:Evoked Potentials / Q000502:physiology*; D009415:Nerve Net / Q000502:physiology*; D009474:Neurons / Q000502:physiology*; D051381:Rats; D013569:Synapses / Q000502:physiology*; D013997:Time Factors