title: Determination of the fraction of active inputs required by a neuron to fire.
abstract: What fraction of the inputs to a neuron in the primary visual cortex (V1) need to be active for that neuron to reach its firing threshold? The paper describes a numerical method for estimating the selectivity of visual neurons, in terms of the required fraction of active excitatory inputs, from standard data produced by intracellular electro-physiological recordings. The method also provides an estimate of the relative strength of the feedforward inhibition in a push-pull model of the inputs to V1 simple cells. The method is tested on two V1 cells described in Carandini and Ferster [Carandini, M., Ferster, D., 2000. Membrane potential and firing rate in cat primary visual cortex. J. Neurosci. 20, 470-484]. The results indicate that the maximum strength of feedforward inhibition is around 30% of the maximum strength of feedforward excitation. The two V1 neurons investigated fire if more than around 40% of their excitatory LGN inputs are active.
authors.affiliation: School of Computing Communication and Electronics, University of Plymouth, Drake Circus, Plymouth PL4 8 AA, United Kingdom. gbugmann@plymouth.ac.uk
authors.forename: Guido
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Bugmann
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002415:Cats; D008564:Membrane Potentials; D008959:Models, Neurological; D009474:Neurons / Q000502:physiology*; D014793:Visual Cortex / Q000166:cytology / Q000502:physiology