title: Membrane potential and response properties of populations of cortical neurons in the high conductance state.
abstract: Because of intense synaptic activity, cortical neurons are in a high conductance state. We show that this state has important consequences on the properties of a population of independent model neurons with conductance-based synapses. Using an adiabaticlike approximation we study both the membrane potential and the firing probability distributions across the population. We find that the latter is bimodal in such a way that at any particular moment some neurons are inactive while others are active. The population rate and the response variability are also characterized.
authors.affiliation: Departamento de Física Teórica, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Cantoblanco, 28049 Madrid, Spain.
authors.forename: Rubén
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Moreno-Bote
authors.forename: Néstor
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Parga
mesh_terms: D001921:Brain; D002540:Cerebral Cortex / Q000166:cytology / Q000502:physiology*; D008564:Membrane Potentials / Q000502:physiology; D008959:Models, Neurological; D009431:Neural Conduction / Q000502:physiology*; D009474:Neurons / Q000502:physiology*