In article <eeuglvc5bidtt16llvkfn3a0i2r95hncj4 at 4ax.com>,
r norman <rsn_ at _comcast.net> wrote:
> People may not be so excited by electrotonic coupling (with added
> low-pass filtering in the connection) because they, too, have been
> around for 40 years or so. They have been known in invertebrates for
> a very long time and are a well established mechanism to generally
> synchronize activity in populations of cells -- the coupling allows
> them to increase and decrease in overall excitability simultaneously.
I know they've been demonstrated for that length of time in other
nervous systems, but as far as I know they're a novelty in adult
mammalian cortex - and a novelty which has profound implications for
cortical dynamics, I would say. Certainly I have spoken to many good
cortical neurophysiologists who have been surprised to hear about it!
It seems that entire populations of phenotypically similar inhibitory
cells are electrotonically linked (and reciprocally inhibitory) in such
a way that natural oscillatory rhythms fall out of the arrangement.
With several theoretical efforts suggesting phase locking and particular
frequency bands as hallmarks of temporal binding in conscious behaviour,
it seems a natural substrate worth investigating!
But I guess these things do come and go - after all, some researchers
reported that stem cells were turning over in the mid-60s, 30 years
before they became "sensational news".
Cheers,
Matthew.
