328 research outputs found
Action Potential Onset Dynamics and the Response Speed of Neuronal Populations
The result of computational operations performed at the single cell level are
coded into sequences of action potentials (APs). In the cerebral cortex, due to
its columnar organization, large number of neurons are involved in any
individual processing task. It is therefore important to understand how the
properties of coding at the level of neuronal populations are determined by the
dynamics of single neuron AP generation. Here we analyze how the AP generating
mechanism determines the speed with which an ensemble of neurons can represent
transient stochastic input signals. We analyze a generalization of the
-neuron, the normal form of the dynamics of Type-I excitable membranes.
Using a novel sparse matrix representation of the Fokker-Planck equation, which
describes the ensemble dynamics, we calculate the transmission functions for
small modulations of the mean current and noise noise amplitude. In the
high-frequency limit the transmission function decays as ,
where surprisingly depends on the phase at which APs are
emitted. In a physiologically plausible regime up to 1kHz the typical response
speed is, however, independent of the high-frequency limit and is set by the
rapidness of the AP onset, as revealed by the full transmission function. In
this regime modulations of the noise amplitude can be transmitted faithfully up
to much higher frequencies than modulations in the mean input current. We
finally show that the linear response approach used is valid for a large regime
of stimulus amplitudes.Comment: Submitted to the Journal of Computational Neuroscienc
Particle Dispersion on Rapidly Folding Random Hetero-Polymers
We investigate the dynamics of a particle moving randomly along a disordered
hetero-polymer subjected to rapid conformational changes which induce
superdiffusive motion in chemical coordinates. We study the antagonistic
interplay between the enhanced diffusion and the quenched disorder. The
dispersion speed exhibits universal behavior independent of the folding
statistics. On the other hand it is strongly affected by the structure of the
disordered potential. The results may serve as a reference point for a number
of translocation phenomena observed in biological cells, such as protein
dynamics on DNA strands.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure
Two interacting Hofstadter butterflies
The problem of two interacting particles in a quasiperiodic potential is
addressed. Using analytical and numerical methods, we explore the spectral
properties and eigenstates structure from the weak to the strong interaction
case. More precisely, a semiclassical approach based on non commutative
geometry techniques permits to understand the intricate structure of such a
spectrum. An interaction induced localization effect is furthermore emphasized.
We discuss the application of our results on a two-dimensional model of two
particles in a uniform magnetic field with on-site interaction.Comment: revtex, 12 pages, 11 figure
Fractal Conductance Fluctuations in a Soft Wall Stadium and a Sinai Billiard
Conductance fluctuations have been studied in a soft wall stadium and a Sinai
billiard defined by electrostatic gates on a high mobility semiconductor
heterojunction. These reproducible magnetoconductance fluctuations are found to
be fractal confirming recent theoretical predictions of quantum signatures in
classically mixed (regular and chaotic) systems. The fractal character of the
fluctuations provides direct evidence for a hierarchical phase space structure
at the boundary between regular and chaotic motion.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, data on Sinai geometry added to Fig.1, minor
change
Forced IFIT-2 expression represses LPS induced TNF-alpha expression at posttranscriptional levels
<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Interferon induced tetratricopeptide repeat protein 2 (IFIT-2, P54) belongs to the type I interferon response genes and is highly induced after stimulation with LPS. The biological function of this protein is so far unclear. Previous studies indicated that IFIT-2 binds to the initiation factor subunit eIF-3c, affects translation initiation and inhibits protein synthesis. The aim of the study was to further characterize the function of IFIT-2.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Stimulation of RAW264.7 macrophages with LPS or IFN-γ leads to the expression of IFIT-2 in a type I interferon dependent manner. By using stably transfected RAW264.7 macrophages overexpressing IFIT-2 we found that IFIT-2 inhibits selectively LPS induced expression of TNF-α, IL-6, and MIP-2 but not of IFIT-1 or EGR-1. In IFIT-2 overexpressing cells TNF-α mRNA expression was lower after LPS stimulation due to reduced mRNA stability. Further experiments suggest that characteristics of the 3'UTR of transcripts discriminate whether IFIT-2 has a strong impact on protein expression or not.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Our data suggest that IFIT-2 may affect selectively LPS induced protein expression probably by regulation at different posttranscriptional levels.</p
What determines the spreading of a wave packet?
The multifractal dimensions D2^mu and D2^psi of the energy spectrum and
eigenfunctions, resp., are shown to determine the asymptotic scaling of the
width of a spreading wave packet. For systems where the shape of the wave
packet is preserved the k-th moment increases as t^(k*beta) with
beta=D2^mu/D2^psi, while in general t^(k*beta) is an optimal lower bound.
Furthermore, we show that in d dimensions asymptotically in time the center of
any wave packet decreases spatially as a power law with exponent D_2^psi - d
and present numerical support for these results.Comment: Physical Review Letters to appear, 4 pages postscript with figure
Magneto-Transport in the Two-Dimensional Lorentz Gas
We consider the two-dimensional Lorentz gas with Poisson distributed hard
disk scatterers and a constant magnetic field perpendicular to the plane of
motion. The velocity autocorrelation is computed numerically over the full
range of densities and magnetic fields with particular attention to the
percolation threshold between hopping transport and pure edge currents. The
Ohmic and Hall conductance are compared with mode-coupling theory and a recent
generalized kinetic equation valid for low densities and small fields. We argue
that the long time tail as persists for non-zero magnetic field.Comment: 7 pages, 14 figures. Uses RevTeX and epsfig.sty. Submitted to
Physical Review
Three-point correlations for quantum star graphs
We compute the three point correlation function for the eigenvalues of the
Laplacian on quantum star graphs in the limit where the number of edges tends
to infinity. This extends a work by Berkolaiko and Keating, where they get the
2-point correlation function and show that it follows neither Poisson, nor
random matrix statistics. It makes use of the trace formula and combinatorial
analysis.Comment: 10 pages, 2 figure
Experimental evidence for the role of cantori as barriers in a quantum system
We investigate the effect of cantori on momentum diffusion in a quantum
system. Ultracold caesium atoms are subjected to a specifically designed
periodically pulsed standing wave. A cantorus separates two chaotic regions of
the classical phase space. Diffusion through the cantorus is classically
predicted. Quantum diffusion is only significant when the classical phase-space
area escaping through the cantorus per period greatly exceeds Planck's
constant. Experimental data and a quantum analysis confirm that the cantori act
as barriers.Comment: 19 pages including 9 figures, Accepted for publication in Physical
Review E in March 199
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