Topic: cell-intrinsic mechanism

The onset of a stimulus, whether sensory or non-sensory, quenches trial-to-trial neural variability. The universality of this phenomenon across brain areas and species implies that it is a fundamental strategy employed by the brain to boost the fidelity of stimulus representation. Multiple network models have attempted to explain this phenomenon via circuit interactions, but a recent alternative theory proposes a much simpler cell-intrinsic mechanism: stimulus onset increases membrane conductance which itself is enough to quench output variability. Although this model can explain all of the ph