Further information
Dr Marcelo Montemurro, Faculty of Life Sciences, University of Manchester, presents this seminar as part of the Department of Bioengineering Seminar Series: Spring 2010 on: “Encoding of the phase of the local field potential by cortical bursting neurons.”
Abstract: Single neurons in the cerebral cortex are immersed in a fluctuating electric field, the local field potential (LFP), which mainly originates from synchronous synaptic input into the local neural neighbourhood. As shown by recent studies in visual and auditory cortices of mammals, the angular phase of the LFP at the time of spike generation adds significant extra information about the external world, beyond the one contained in the firing rate alone. However, no biologically plausible mechanism has yet been suggested that allows downstream neurons to infer the phase of the LFP at the soma of their pre-synaptic afferents. After reviewing the basis of phase coding by LFP and spikes, I will present results on the role of cortical bursting neurons in decoding phase information. The study of a model of a cortical pyramidal cell shows that the number of spikes per burst varies systematically with the angular phase of the fluctuating input at the time of burst onset. The mapping between input phase and number of spikes per burst is a robust response feature for a broad range of stimulus statistics. These results suggest that cortical bursting neurons could play a crucial role in translating phase information into an easily decodable spike count code.
Biography: Marcelo Montemurro obtained his PhD in Physics from the National University of Cordoba in Argentina, in 2002. Then he spent two years at the International Centre for theoretical Physics in Triste, Italy. There his interests moved from the statistical mechanics of artificial neural networks to the problem of how the brain encodes and processes information about the environment. In 2004 he moved to the University of Manchester with a Human Frontiers Science Programme Fellowship. Then, in 2006 Marcelo got an MRC Fellowship in Neuroinformatics and a University of Manchester fellowhip at the Life / Physical Sciences interface.
For more information please email Jennifer Siggers