耶鲁大学的研究人员发现，我们的大脑之所以能够准确高效地处理大量的感觉信息，与大脑中的“神经恒温调节器“调节视觉皮层有很大的关系。
据一篇发表于1月13日Neuron杂志的研究报告称，抑制性神经元可以通过抑制不太重要的视觉刺激，只处理重要信息的方式来节约大脑的能耗。
在所有人类器官中，大脑的耗能最多。因此科学家一直想弄清楚大脑如何既高效又准确的处理大量感觉信息的过程。一般研究报告多集中在研究简单刺激对大脑兴奋性神经元的作用。但该课题组对真实生活环境下大脑处理更复杂的感觉信息的过程进行研究。
在这项研究中，研究人员让动物观看自然风景的短片，然后对动物的大脑进行研究。课题组发现，视觉皮层的抑制性神经元能够控制兴奋性细胞之间的相互作用。（生物谷Bioon.com）
生物谷推荐原始出处：
Neuron, Volume 65, Issue 1, 107-121, 14 January 2010
Synaptic and Network Mechanisms of Sparse and Reliable Visual Cortical Activity during Nonclassical Receptive Field Stimulation
Bilal Haider, Matthew R. Krause, Alvaro Duque, Yuguo Yu, Jonathan Touryan, James A. Mazer, David A. McCormick
During natural vision, the entire visual field is stimulated by images rich in spatiotemporal structure. Although many visual system studies restrict stimuli to the classical receptive field (CRF), it is known that costimulation of the CRF and the surrounding nonclassical receptive field (nCRF) increases neuronal response sparseness. The cellular and network mechanisms underlying increased response sparseness remain largely unexplored. Here we show that combined CRF + nCRF stimulation increases the sparseness, reliability, and precision of spiking and membrane potential responses in classical regular spiking (RSC) pyramidal neurons of cat primary visual cortex. Conversely, fast-spiking interneurons exhibit increased activity and decreased selectivity during CRF + nCRF stimulation. The increased sparseness and reliability of RSC neuron spiking is associated with increased inhibitory barrages and narrower visually evoked synaptic potentials. Our experimental observations were replicated with a simple computational model, suggesting that network interactions among neuronal subtypes ultimately sharpen recurrent excitation, producing specific and reliable visual responses.
