In article <TAL.93Feb25224725 at copley.bu.edu> tal at copley.bu.edu (Doron Tal) writes:
>>On the one hand, anatomical evidence suggests that a neuron has, on
>average, on the order of THOUSANDS of neurons impinging on it. On the
>other hand, physiological evidence shows that only a few epsps are
>needed to generate an action potential - which would imply that ONE
>cell is sufficient for exciting the postsynaptic neuron.
>>Can anyone explain this disparity between anatomy and physiology?
>>Some hypotheses:
>>1. most of the thousands of synapses on a neuron are inactive
>(unlikely)
>2. a neuron that has thousands of inputs has an extremely large and
>finely-tuned range
>>If we knew what the range of a neuron is, on average, then we'd be
>able to tell between the two above hypotheses.
>>-Doron
3. Lots of the synapses are inhibitory.
-
Doug Fitts
dfitts at u.washington.edu
