Spontaneous action potentials and neural coding in unmyelinated axons

O'Donnell, Cian; van Rossum, Mark C.W.

Abstract

The voltage-gated Na and K channels in neurons are responsible for action potential generation. Because ion channels open and close in a stochastic fashion, spontaneous (ectopic) action potentials can result even in the absence of stimulation. While spontaneous action potentials have been studied in detail in single-compartment models, studies on spatially extended processes have been limited. The simulations and analysis presented here show that spontaneous rate in unmyelinated axon depends nonmonotonically on the length of the axon, that the spontaneous activity has sub-Poisson statistics, and that neural coding can be hampered by the spontaneous spikes by reducing the probability of transmitting the first spike in a train.

Citation

O'Donnell, C., & van Rossum, M. C. (2015). Spontaneous action potentials and neural coding in unmyelinated axons. Neural Computation, 27(4), https://doi.org/10.1162/NECO_a_00705

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Sep 29, 2014
• Online Publication Date: Mar 17, 2015
• Publication Date: Apr 30, 2015
• Deposit Date: Feb 8, 2018
• Publicly Available Date: Feb 8, 2018
• Journal: Neural Computation
• Print ISSN: 0899-7667
• Electronic ISSN: 1530-888X
• Publisher: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 27
• Issue: 4
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1162/NECO_a_00705
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/748901
• Publisher URL: https://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/10.1162/NECO_a_00705
• Contract Date: Feb 8, 2018