Impact of intrinsic biophysical diversity on the activity of spiking neurons

TL;DR

This paper investigates how intrinsic biophysical diversity influences the activity and synchronization of spiking neurons, providing a mathematical framework that explains experimental observations.

Contribution

It introduces a rescaling method to relate neuronal parameters to input noise, elucidating the impact of heterogeneity on neuron firing rates and timing.

Findings

Neuronal output rates vary significantly due to heterogeneity.

Heterogeneity leads to desynchronization of spike timing.

The theory aligns with recent experimental data.

Abstract

We study the effect of intrinsic heterogeneity on the activity of a population of leaky integrate-and-fire neurons. By rescaling the dynamical equation, we derive mathematical relations between multiple neuronal parameters and a fluctuating input noise. To this end, common input to heterogeneous neurons is conceived as an identical noise with neuron-specific mean and variance. As a consequence, the neuronal output rates can differ considerably, and their relative spike timing becomes desynchronized. This theory can quantitatively explain some recent experimental findings.