The neocortex depends upon a relative balance of recurrent excitation and inhibition for its operation. During spontaneous Up states, cortical pyramidal cells receive proportional barrages of excitatory and inhibitory synaptic potentials. Many of these synaptic potentials arise from the activity of nearby neurons, although the identity of these cells is relatively unknown, especially for those ...

Ripples are high-frequency oscillation bursts in the mammalian hippocampus mainly present during Non-REM sleep. In rodents they occur in association with sharp waves and are grouped by the cortical slow oscillation such that, in parallel with sleep spindles, ripple activity is suppressed during the hyperpolarized down-state and enhanced during the depolarized up-state. The temporal coupling bet...

Interstitial cells of Cajal (ICC) are considered to be pacemaker cells in gastrointestinal tracts. ICC generate electrical rhythmicity (dihydropyridine-insensitive) as slow waves and drive spontaneous contraction of smooth muscles. Although cytosolic Ca(2+) has been assumed to play a key role in pacemaking, Ca(2+) movements in ICC have not yet been examined in detail. In the present study, usin...

This study's aim was to identify the effect of oscillation of torques in isometric tasks under identical mechanical conditions on the muscle synergies used. It was hypothesized that bi-functional muscles would play a lesser role in torque oscillation, because they would also generate an undesired oscillation. Thus, changes in muscle synergies were expected as a consequence of oscillation in tor...

Oscillations in the concentration of free cytosolic Ca2+ are an important and ubiquitous control mechanism in many cell types. It is thus correspondingly important to understand the mechanisms that underlie the control of these oscillations and how their period is determined. We show that Class I Ca2+ oscillations (i.e., oscillations that can occur at a constant concentration of inositol trisph...

Neuronal responses to auditory stimuli and electrical stimulation were examined in 104 neurones in the auditory sector of thalamic reticular nucleus (TRN) and nine medial geniculate (MGB) neurones from anaesthetized guinea pigs. TRN neurones showed rhythmic spontaneous activities. TRN neurones changed firing pattern over time, from tonic to burst in a time interval of several seconds to tens of...

Previously the application of a weak electric anodal current oscillating with a frequency of the sleep slow oscillation (∼0.75 Hz) during non-rapid eye movement sleep (NonREM) sleep boosted endogenous slow oscillation activity and enhanced sleep-associated memory consolidation. The slow oscillations occurring during NonREM sleep and theta oscillations present during REM sleep have been consider...

Spontaneous slow oscillation-associated slow wave activity represents an internally generated state which is characterized by alternations of network quiescence and stereotypical episodes of neuronal activity - slow wave events. However, it remains unclear which macroscopic signal is related to these active periods of the slow wave rhythm. We used optic fiber-based calcium recordings of local n...

Various studies suggest that non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep, especially slow-wave sleep (SWS), is vital to the consolidation of declarative memories. However, sleep stage 2 (S2), which is the other NREM sleep stage besides SWS, has gained only little attention. The current study investigated whether S2 during an afternoon nap contributes to the consolidation of declarative memories. Partic...