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Nature 441, 702-703 (8 June 2006) | doi:10.1038/441702a; Published online 7 June 2006

Neurobiology: Extending influence

Eve Marder1

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Rather than merely firing in a digital on–off fashion, vertebrate neurons may have an analogue aspect to their signalling too — a finding that will not surprise many who have worked on invertebrate neurons.

Much of what we know about electrical signalling in the brain comes from extracellular recordings that detect when a neuron is firing action potentials. These recordings do not, however, provide continuous monitoring of the fluctuations of membrane potential, and do not capture sub-threshold changes in membrane potential such as those caused by individual synaptic events.

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