Frequency tuning of input-output relation in a rat cortical neuron in-vitro.

The input-output relation of a single neuron stands at the basis of every biologically oriented description of the brain. This report shows that the input-output relation of cultured cortical neurons is non-linearly tuned by the input frequency. Increasing the rate of stimulation results in the appearance of ordered temporal firing patterns, which are qualitatively different for different input frequencies. The experimental results of this study lead to the conclusion that frequency tuning of neuronal input-output relation arises from activity-dependent rates at the molecular level underlying the mechanism of excitability itself.