In recent years, there has been an abundance of research on how to prolong the effects of a synaptic potential, and more importantly, how to enhance or reduce its amplitude.
12.
An action potential can be accurately represented as a current quadrupole, meaning that the resulting field decreases more rapidly than the ones produced by the current dipole of post-synaptic potentials.
13.
It has been determined from electrophysiological data that excitatory synapses on proximal apical dendrites of prefrontal cortex pyramidal neurons serve to amplify excitatory post-synaptic potential ( EPSP ) signals generated in distal apical dendrites.
14.
This all-or-nothing property of the action potential sets it apart from graded potentials such as receptor potentials, electrotonic potentials, and synaptic potentials, which scale with the magnitude of the stimulus.
15.
MEG detects intracellular currents associated primarily with these synaptic potentials because the field components generated by volume currents tend to cancel out in a spherical volume conductor The decay of magnetic fields as a function of distance is more pronounced than for electric fields.
16.
These include both fast-spiking cells whose inhibitory post-synaptic potentials ( IPSPs ) sum to create small, smooth IPSPs in pyramidal cells and slow spiking cells ( these produce large, fast-rising IPSPs in the pyramidal cell target ).
17.
The 5HT 2A receptor and possibly the 5HT 1C are involved by releasing glutamate in the excitatory post-synaptic potentials, a process antagonized by serotonin itself through 5HT 1 which may explain why SSRI's and other serotonin-affecting drugs do not normally cause a patient to hallucinate.
18.
In the area of neuroinformatics, he co-defined with Kevin Staley ( Harvard Medical School ) and others a dynamic Synaptic Activity Plasticity Rule, which in contrast to other plasticity rules is continuous and dynamic as it uses actual post-synaptic potential function to modify connection strength between neurons.
19.
"Generally, if an excitatory synapse is strong, an action potential in the pre-synaptic neuron will trigger another in the post-synaptic cell; whereas at a weak synapse the excitatory post-synaptic potential ( " EPSP " ) will not reach the threshold for action potential initiation.
20.
This technical breakthrough means we can track subtle changes in brain activity at the level of ion channels and synaptic potentials, which are also the most suitable target sites for drug development in neurodegenerative diseases and neuropsychological disorders, says Syed, professor and head of the Department of Cell Biology and Anatomy, member of the Hotchkiss Brain Institute and advisor to the Vice President Research on Biomedical Engineering Initiative of the University of Chicago.
