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Stimulus dependence of two-state fluctuations of membrane potential in cat visual cortex

Nature Neuroscience volume 3, pages 617–621 (2000)Cite this article

Abstract

Membrane potentials of cortical neurons fluctuate between a hyperpolarized (‘down’) state and a depolarized (‘up’) state which may be separated by up to 30 mV, reflecting rapid but infrequent transitions between two patterns of synaptic input. Here we show that such fluctuations may contribute to representation of visual stimuli by cortical cells. In complex cells of anesthetized cats, where such fluctuations are most prominent, prolonged visual stimulation increased the probability of the up state. This probability increase was related to stimulus strength: its dependence on stimulus orientation and contrast matched each cell's averaged membrane potential. Thus large fluctuations in membrane potential are not simply noise on which visual responses are superimposed, but may provide a substrate for encoding sensory information.

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Figure 1: Responses of a complex cell to a drifting grating of optimal orientation and spatial frequency.
Figure 2: Prevalence of two-state fluctuations in simple and complex cells.
Figure 3: Visual responses of complex cells.
Figure 4: Visual response properties derived from membrane potential fluctuations in complex cells.
Figure 5: Contribution of membrane potential fluctuations to changes in firing rate during the up state.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by an NIH grant (R01EY04726). J.A. was supported by a NEI training grant (P32EY07128). We thank Indira Raman, Deda Gillespie, Michael Stryker and Nelson Spruston for comments on the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Neurobiology and Physiology, Northwestern University, 2153 North Campus Drive, Evanston, 60208, Illinois, USA

    Jeffrey Anderson, Ilan Lampl, Iva Reichova & David Ferster

  2. Institute for Neuroinformatics, ETH/University of Zürich, Zürich, CH-8057, Switzerland

    Matteo Carandini

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  1. Jeffrey Anderson
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  2. Ilan Lampl
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  3. Iva Reichova
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  4. Matteo Carandini
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  5. David Ferster
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Correspondence to David Ferster.

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Anderson, J., Lampl, I., Reichova, I. et al. Stimulus dependence of two-state fluctuations of membrane potential in cat visual cortex. Nat Neurosci 3, 617–621 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1038/75797

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