[Comp-neuro] Calcium Spikes Concluded

[Harry Erwin]

My thanks to Andreas Schaefer for pointing me at Rhodes and Llinas  
(2005) "A model of thalamocortical relay cells", J Physio, 565.4:  
765-781, which is an excellent study of the question. Their model  
appears to be good at describing what we also see in inferior  
colliculus rebound neurones, raising the question of why this single  
neurone type lends itself to two different functions. (IC rebound  
neurones seem to measure time intervals between sounds--we get  
remarkable duration hyperacuity in bats--on the order of 100  
nanoseconds measured behaviourally by multiple labs. Jim Simmons has  
indicated about 10 nanoseconds <http://books.nips.cc/papers/txt/nips02/0002.txt 
 >, but that value is subject to argument.) Perhaps the two types of  
neurones aren't really different in what they do.

--
Harry Erwin, PhD, Senior Lecturer of Computing, University of  
Sunderland. Computational neuroethologist:
http://scat-he-g4.sunderland.ac.uk/~harryerw/phpwiki/index.php/AuditoryResearch