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The presence of some conductances, such as slow potassium channels, renders neuronal firing more reliable. In a regime of suprathreshold regular firing such conductances can increase the robustness of the limit cycle and lower the effect of noise on the timing of spikes in response to rhythmic and nonrhythmic stimuli. It may therefore seem advantageous for a cell to express these intrinsic conductances in order to reduce spike-timing jitter. Using conductance-based model neurons, however, we illustrate that there is a trade-off between the ability of a neuron to respond to rhythmic stimuli with high temporal precision and the ability to transmit information about nonrhythmic stimuli. Depending on their functional role, neurons may hence chose different strategies: by expressing different sets of intrinsic conductances, they may either rely on strong instrinsic oscillatory dynamics, which reduce the effect of intrinsic noise, or alternatively increase their responsiveness to stimulus fluctuations, which favours information transfer, but comes at the cost of a higher sensitivity to noise. |
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