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High-conductance State
The term high-conductance state describes a particular state of neurons in specific states of the brain, such as for example during wakefulness, attentive states, or even during some anesthetized states. In individual neurons, the high-conductance state is formally defined by the fact that the total synaptic conductance received by the neuron is larger than its natural resting (or leak) conductance, so in a sense the neuron is "driven" by its inputs rather than being dominated by its intrinsic activity. High-conductance states have been well characterized experimentally, but they also have motivated numerous theoretical studies, in particular in relation to the considerable amount of "noise" present in such states. It is believed that this " synaptic noise" has determinant properties on neuronal processing, and even may confer several computational advantages to neurons (see details in the articlHigh-Conductance Statein Scholarpedia). The term high-conductance state is also us ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Neuron
A neuron (American English), neurone (British English), or nerve cell, is an membrane potential#Cell excitability, excitable cell (biology), cell that fires electric signals called action potentials across a neural network (biology), neural network in the nervous system. They are located in the nervous system and help to receive and conduct impulses. Neurons communicate with other cells via synapses, which are specialized connections that commonly use minute amounts of chemical neurotransmitters to pass the electric signal from the presynaptic neuron to the target cell through the synaptic gap. Neurons are the main components of nervous tissue in all Animalia, animals except sponges and placozoans. Plants and fungi do not have nerve cells. Molecular evidence suggests that the ability to generate electric signals first appeared in evolution some 700 to 800 million years ago, during the Tonian period. Predecessors of neurons were the peptidergic secretory cells. They eventually ga ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Brain
The brain is an organ (biology), organ that serves as the center of the nervous system in all vertebrate and most invertebrate animals. It consists of nervous tissue and is typically located in the head (cephalization), usually near organs for special senses such as visual perception, vision, hearing, and olfaction. Being the most specialized organ, it is responsible for receiving information from the sensory nervous system, processing that information (thought, cognition, and intelligence) and the coordination of motor control (muscle activity and endocrine system). While invertebrate brains arise from paired segmental ganglia (each of which is only responsible for the respective segmentation (biology), body segment) of the ventral nerve cord, vertebrate brains develop axially from the midline dorsal nerve cord as a brain vesicle, vesicular enlargement at the rostral (anatomical term), rostral end of the neural tube, with centralized control over all body segments. All vertebr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wakefulness
Wakefulness is a daily recurring brain state and state of consciousness in which an individual is conscious and engages in coherent cognition, cognitive and behavioral responses to the external world. Being awake is the opposite of being asleep, in which most external inputs to the brain are excluded from neural processing. Effects upon the brain The longer the brain has been awake, the greater the synchronous firing rates of cerebral cortex neurons. After sustained periods of sleep, both the speed and synchronicity of the neurons firing are shown to decrease. Another effect of wakefulness is the reduction of glycogen held in the astrocytes, which supply energy to the neurons. Studies have shown that one of sleep's underlying functions is to replenish this glycogen energy source. Maintenance by the brain Wakefulness is produced by a complex interaction between multiple neurotransmitter systems arising in the brainstem and ascending through the midbrain, hypothalamus, thalamus ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anesthesia
Anesthesia (American English) or anaesthesia (British English) is a state of controlled, temporary loss of sensation or awareness that is induced for medical or veterinary purposes. It may include some or all of analgesia (relief from or prevention of pain), paralysis (muscle relaxation), amnesia (loss of memory), and unconsciousness. An individual under the effects of anesthetic drugs is referred to as being anesthetized. Anesthesia enables the painless performance of procedures that would otherwise require physical restraint in a non-anesthetized individual, or would otherwise be technically unfeasible. Three broad categories of anesthesia exist: * ''General anesthesia'' suppresses central nervous system activity and results in unconsciousness and total lack of Sensation (psychology), sensation, using either injected or inhaled drugs. * ''Sedation'' suppresses the central nervous system to a lesser degree, inhibiting both anxiolysis, anxiety and creation of long-term memory, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Synapse
In the nervous system, a synapse is a structure that allows a neuron (or nerve cell) to pass an electrical or chemical signal to another neuron or a target effector cell. Synapses can be classified as either chemical or electrical, depending on the mechanism of signal transmission between neurons. In the case of electrical synapses, neurons are coupled bidirectionally with each other through gap junctions and have a connected cytoplasmic milieu. These types of synapses are known to produce synchronous network activity in the brain, but can also result in complicated, chaotic network level dynamics. Therefore, signal directionality cannot always be defined across electrical synapses. Chemical synapses, on the other hand, communicate through neurotransmitters released from the presynaptic neuron into the synaptic cleft. Upon release, these neurotransmitters bind to specific receptors on the postsynaptic membrane, inducing an electrical or chemical response in the target neuron ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Synaptic Noise
Synaptic noise refers to the constant bombardment of synaptic activity in neurons. This occurs in the background of a cell when potentials are produced without the nerve stimulation of an action potential, and are due to the inherently random nature of synapses. These random potentials have similar time courses as excitatory postsynaptic potentials (EPSPs) and inhibitory postsynaptic potentials (IPSPs), yet they lead to variable neuronal responses. The variability is due to differences in the discharge times of action potentials. Causes Many types of noise exist in cells. First, there is intrinsic noise and extrinsic, or synaptic, noise. Within each category there are two further divisions of noise – voltage noise or temporal noise. Intrinsic voltage noise is due to random changes in the membrane potential of a cell, and intrinsic temporal noise is caused by variations in spike generation timing. The following sections give explanations about the causes of synaptic noise. Quant ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Scholarpedia
''Scholarpedia'' is an English-language wiki-based online encyclopedia with features commonly associated with Open access (publishing), open-access online academic journals, which aims to have quality content in science and medicine. ''Scholarpedia'' articles are written by invited or approved expert authors and are subject to peer review. ''Scholarpedia'' lists the real names and affiliations of all authors, curators and editors involved in an article: however, the peer review process (which can suggest changes or additions, and has to be satisfied before an article can appear) is anonymous. ''Scholarpedia'' articles are stored in an online repository, and can be citation, cited as conventional journal articles (''Scholarpedia'' has the ISSN number ). ''Scholarpedia''s citation system includes support for revision numbers. The project was created in February 2006 by Eugene M. Izhikevich, while he was a researcher at the Neurosciences Institute, San Diego, California. Izhikevich ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ion Channel
Ion channels are pore-forming membrane proteins that allow ions to pass through the channel pore. Their functions include establishing a resting membrane potential, shaping action potentials and other electrical signals by Gating (electrophysiology), gating the flow of ions across the cell membrane, controlling the flow of ions across secretion, secretory and epithelial cells, and regulating cell (biology), cell volume. Ion channels are present in the membranes of all cells. Ion channels are one of the two classes of ionophore, ionophoric proteins, the other being ion transporters. The study of ion channels often involves biophysics, electrophysiology, and pharmacology, while using techniques including voltage clamp, patch clamp, immunohistochemistry, X-ray crystallography, fluoroscopy, and RT-PCR. Their classification as molecules is referred to as channelomics. Basic features There are two distinctive features of ion channels that differentiate them from other types of ion ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
