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Cerebral Cortex Advance Access published online on April 27, 2004
Cerebral Cortex, doi:10.1093/cercor/bhh071
© 2004 by Oxford University Press
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Article

Selective Amplification of Neocortical Neuronal Output by Fast Prepotentials In Vivo

S. Crochet 1, P. Fuentealba 1, I. Timofeev 1, M. Steriade 1*

1 Laboratoire de Neurophysiologie, Faculté de Médecine, Université Laval, Québec, Canada G1K 7P4

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: mircea.steriade{at}phs.ulaval.ca.


  Abstract

Neocortical cells integrate inputs from thousands of presynaptic neurons distributed along their dendritic arbors. Propagation of post-synaptic potentials to the soma is crucial in determining neuronal output. Using intracellular recordings in anesthetized and non-anesthetized, naturally awake and sleeping cats, we found evidence for generation of fast, all-or-none events recorded at the soma in about 20% of regular-spiking and intrinsically-bursting neurons. These events, termed fast prepotentials (FPPs), were suppressed by hyperpolarizing the neurons or by inhibiting synaptic transmission with perfusion of Ca2+-free artificial cerebrospinal fluid. FPPs could be evoked by activation of specific cortical inputs and allowed neurons to fire at more hyperpolarized levels of membrane potentials. Thus, FPPs represent a powerful mechanism to boost the output of neocortical neurons in response to given inputs. We further found evidence for modulation of FPPs generation across the waking-sleep cycle, indicating important changes in the integrative properties of neocortical neurons in different states of vigilance. We suggest that FPPs represent attenuated spikes generated in hot spots of the dendritic arbor and constitute a powerful mechanism to reinforce the functional connections between specific elements of the cortical networks.

Key Words: dendritic spikes, EPSP amplification, neocortex, synaptic integration


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