herwin at mason1.gmu.edu (HARRY R. ERWIN) writes:
>I would expect the sigmoid relationship at the population level to be
>robust for almost any reasonable model of the neuron. The assymetry is
One caution, and this from someone who used to emphasize f-I curves (the
individual cell's version of that sigmoid): in cerebral cortex, there is
a significant possibility that a relatively few inputs are producing
AND-gate behavior. I say this from Softky & Koch's statistical analysis
(Neural COmputation 1992, J. Neurophysiol. 1993) of single neuron
firing. The sigmoid may be more appropriate to motorneuron pools where
individual inputs are insignificant, where only hundreds at a time manage
to get a repetitive output going.
William H. Calvin WCalvin at U.Washington.edu
