Entrainment of the intrinsic dynamics of single isolated neurons by natural-like input

TL;DR

This study demonstrates that isolated neurons can synchronize their intrinsic scale-free activity fluctuations with natural-like, scale-free input patterns, revealing an innate preference for natural stimuli at the single-cell level.

Contribution

It shows that single neurons' intrinsic dynamics can be entrained by natural-like input, highlighting a fundamental neural processing feature.

Findings

Entrainment is maximized with natural-like, scale-free input.

Neuronal fluctuations are independent of input statistics but can be synchronized.

Single neurons exhibit a preference for natural stimuli, similar to system-level observations.

Abstract

Neuronal dynamics is intrinsically unstable, producing activity fluctuations that are essentially scale-free. Here we show that while these scale-free fluctuations are independent of temporal input statistics, they can be entrained by input variation. Joint input output statistics and spike train reproducibility in synaptically isolated cortical neurons were measured in response to various input regimes over extended time scales (many minutes). Response entrainment was found to be maximal when the input itself possesses natural-like, scale-free statistics. We conclude that preference for natural stimuli, often observed at the system level, exists already at the elementary, single neuron level.