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Nature 440, 999-1000 (20 April 2006) | doi:10.1038/440999a; Published online 19 April 2006

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Neuroscience: Spikes too kinky in the cortex?

Boris Gutkin1 & G. Bard Ermentrout2

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The Hodgkin–Huxley theory that explains the mechanism of how neurons fire forms the cornerstone of computational neuroscience. But something it hasn't predicted is happening in the brain cortex.

Neurons encode and transmit information by generating action potentials, or 'spikes' of voltage that sweep along their membranes (Box 1). It has been 50 years since Hodgkin and Huxley1 proposed a mechanistic model by which such spikes are generated in an electrically excitable membrane.

  1. Boris Gutkin is in the Group for Neural Theory, the Department of Cognitive Studies, ENS, and the Receptors and Cognition Department of Neuroscience, Pasteur Institute, 25 rue du Dr Roux, 75015 Paris, France.
    Email: boris.gutkin@ens.fr
  2. G. Bard Ermentrout is in the Department of Mathematics, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15260, USA.
    Email: bard@math.pitt.edu

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