title: A role of burst firings in encoding of spatiotemporally-varying stimulus.
abstract: To investigate a role of burst firings of neurons in encoding of spatiotemporally-varying stimulus, we focus on electrosensory system of a weakly electric fish. Weakly electric fish generates electric field around its body using electric organ discharge and can accurately detect the location of an object using the modulation of electric field induced by the object. We developed a model of fish body by which we numerically describe the spatiotemporal patterns of electric field around the fish body. We also made neural models of electroreceptor distributed on the fish body and of electrosensory lateral-line lobe (ELL) to investigate what kinds of information of electric field distorted by an object they detect. Here we show that the spatiotemporal features of electric field around the fish body are encoded by the timing of burst firings of ELL neurons. The information of object distance is extracted by the area of synchronous firings of neurons in a higher nucleus, torus semicircularis.
authors.affiliation: Department of Information Network Science, Graduate School of Information Systems, University of Electro-Communications, Chofu, Tokyo 182-8585, Japan. k-z-f@yahoo.co.jp
authors.forename: Kazuhisa
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Fujita
authors.forename: Yoshiki
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Kashimori
authors.forename: MeiHong
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Zheng
authors.forename: Takeshi
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Kambara
mesh_terms: D000200:Action Potentials / Q000502:physiology* / Q000528:radiation effects; D000818:Animals; D003198:Computer Simulation; D004555:Electric Fish / Q000502:physiology*; D004557:Electric Organ / Q000502:physiology* / Q000528:radiation effects; D004558:Electric Stimulation / Q000379:methods; D004574:Electromagnetic Fields; D008959:Models, Neurological; D009415:Nerve Net / Q000502:physiology* / Q000528:radiation effects; D016571:Neural Networks, Computer; D009475:Neurons, Afferent / Q000502:physiology* / Q000528:radiation effects