TY - JOUR T1 - Mechanisms of Firing Patterns in Fast-Spiking Cortical Interneurons A1 - Golomb, David A1 - Donner, Karnit A1 - Shacham, Liron A1 - Shlosberg, Dan A1 - Amitai, Yael A1 - Hansel, David Y1 - 2007/08/10 N2 - Author SummaryAbout 25% of the neurons in the mammalian neocortex are inhibitory, namely reduce the activity of neurons they contact. These inhibitory neurons exhibit diversity of morphological, chemical, and biophysical properties, and their classification has recently been the focus of much debate. Even neurons belonging to a single class of “fast-spiking” (FS) display a large variety of firing patterns in response to standard square current pulses. Previous works proposed that this class is in fact a discrete set of neuronal subtypes with biophysical properties differing in a discontinuous way. In this work, we propose an alternative theory, according to which the biophysical properties of FS neurons are continuously distributed, but distinct firing patterns emerge due to highly nonlinear dynamics of these neurons. We ascertain this theory by exploring with mathematical techniques a biophysically based model of FS neurons. We demonstrate that variable firing responses of cortical FS neurons can be accounted for if one assumes heterogeneity in the strength of some of the ionic conductances underlying neuronal activity. Our theory predicts the existence of two main firing patterns of FS neurons. This prediction is verified by direct recordings in cortical slices. JF - PLOS Computational Biology JA - PLOS Computational Biology VL - 3 IS - 8 UR - https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.0030156 SP - e156 EP - PB - Public Library of Science M3 - doi:10.1371/journal.pcbi.0030156 ER -