Balanced inhibition and excitation drive spike activity in spinal half-centers.

Balanced Inhibition and Excitation Drives Spike Activity in Spinal Half-Centers

Commentary: Synaptic Excitation in Spinal Motoneurons Alternates with Synaptic Inhibition and Is Balanced by Outward Rectification during Rhythmic Motor Network Activity

Citation: Berg RW (2018) Commentary: Synaptic Excitation in Spinal Motoneurons Alternates with Synaptic Inhibition and Is Balanced by Outward Rectification during Rhythmic Motor Network Activity. Front. Neural Circuits 12:1. doi: 10.3389/fncir.2018.00001 Commentary: Synaptic Excitation in Spinal Motoneurons Alternates with Synaptic Inhibition and Is Balanced by Outward Rectification during Rhyt...

Balanced excitation and inhibition determine spike timing during frequency adaptation.

In layer 4 (L4) of the rat barrel cortex, a single whisker deflection evokes a stereotyped sequence of excitation followed by inhibition, hypothesized to result in a narrow temporal window for spike output. However, awake rats sweep their whiskers across objects, activating the cortex at frequencies known to induce short-term depression at both excitatory and inhibitory synapses within L4. Alth...

Preceding Inhibition Silences Layer 6 Neurons in Auditory Cortex

A canonical feedforward circuit is proposed to underlie sensory cortical responses with balanced excitation and inhibition in layer 4 (L4). However, in another input layer, L6, sensory responses and the underlying synaptic circuits remain largely unclear. Here, cell-attached recordings in rat primary auditory cortex revealed that for the majority of L6 excitatory neurons, tonal stimuli did not ...

Defining the excitatory neurons that drive the locomotor rhythm in a simple vertebrate: insights into the origin of reticulospinal control

Important questions remain about the origin of the excitation that drives locomotion in vertebrates and the roles played by reticulospinal neurons. In young Xenopus tadpoles, paired whole-cell recordings reveal reticulospinal neurons that directly excite swimming circuit neurons in the brainstem and spinal cord. They form part of a column of neurons (dINs) with ipsilateral descending projection...