NROC69H3 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Patch Clamp, Basal Ganglia, Postsynaptic Density
Document Summary
Principles of synaptic integration: majority of central neurons receive input from 100s of neurons (excitatory and inhibitory). Ap firing depends on whether the membrane potential at the spike trigger zone is above or below threshold. Thus, ap in central neuron is triggered only after the integration of. 1000s of epsps and ipsps generated at different parts of the complex dendritic tree, which travel down to the axon hillock. Synaptic integration: usually presented as a relatively simple algebraic process whereby epsps and. Ipsps add up to determine the membrane potential at the spike initiation zone. Dendrites are considered conduits delivering synaptic potentials to the site of integration (traditional view) Temporal summation: if a synaptic input occurs before a previous potential has decayed, the two will summate (add up). In this way, high frequency excitatory inputs can produce large summating epsps. Spatial summation: if two synapses are located close together, simultaneous inputs will summate.
