ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the groundwork for the numerical modelling of the principal neurons of the neocortex, and goes on to show how such numerical models can provide insights into the behaviour of these cells. The work described in this chapter uses a compartmental model to simulate the transient potential changes throughout the cell. The computational time steps were chosen to allow the time course of the decrement achieved in this way to match that obtained in the full compartmental model. As with the compartmental model the sensitivity of the receptor regions increased and after the conditioning the same patterns of inputs generated a much larger response at the apical nexus. Neurons, and pyramidal cells in particular, have a very unique structure and there must be an important link between their cellular geometry and the way they behave. The adaptive capabilities of pyramidal cells result from the properties of the regions of the cell that receive incoming signals.
