ABSTRACT
The theory of bistable dendrites excluded the slow kinetics of the inward current in the mathematical analysis. In many central neurons, including motoneurons, accommodation of the spike threshold is slow, partial or absent. The theory of dendritic bistability was developed for the simplest version of time-independent C–V. Later, experiments on interneurons and motoneurons in slices of the turtle spinal cord revealed that the bistability develops slowly during depolarization. The inward current develops slowly with a characteristic time of a hundreds milliseconds or even seconds in neurons of the turtle spinal cord slices and in cat motoneurons. A different manifestation of those types of hysteresis may be the tail-current observed by Schwindt and Crill. The experimental paradigm was the following: first, the soma potential was clamped at resting potential, then at high depolarization, then again at RP or a low depolarization.
