2,528 research outputs found
Channel Density Regulation of Firing Patterns in a Cortical Neuron Model
AbstractModifying the density and distribution of ion channels in a neuron (by natural up- and downregulation or by pharmacological intervention or by spontaneous mutations) changes its activity pattern. In this investigation we analyzed how the impulse patterns are regulated by the density of voltage-gated channels in a neuron model based on voltage-clamp measurements of hippocampal interneurons. At least three distinct oscillatory patterns, associated with three distinct regions in the Na-K channel density plane, were found. A stability analysis showed that the different regions are characterized by saddle-node, double-orbit, and Hopf-bifurcation threshold dynamics, respectively. Single, strongly graded action potentials occur in an area outside the oscillatory regions, but less graded action potentials occur together with repetitive firing over a considerable range of channel densities. The relationship found here between channel densities and oscillatory behavior may partly explain the difference between the principal spiking patterns previously described for crab axons (class 1 and 2) and cortical neurons (regular firing and fast spiking)
Effect of tensile stress on the in-plane resistivity anisotropy in BaFe2As2
The effect of uniaxial tensile stress and the resultant strain on the
structural/magnetic transition in the parent compound of the iron arsenide
superconductor, BaFeAs, is characterized by temperature-dependent
electrical resistivity, x-ray diffraction and quantitative polarized light
imaging. We show that strain induces a measurable uniaxial structural
distortion above the first-order magnetic transition and significantly smears
the structural transition. This response is different from that found in
another parent compound, SrFeAs, where the coupled structural and
magnetic transitions are strongly first order. This difference in the
structural responses explains the in-plain resistivity anisotropy above the
transition in BaFeAs. This conclusion is supported by the
Ginzburg-Landau - type phenomenological model for the effect of the uniaxial
strain on the resistivity anisotropy
Uniaxial strain detwinning of CaFe2As2 and BaFe2As2: optical and transport study
TThe parent compounds of iron-arsenide superconductors, FeAs
(=Ca, Sr, Ba), undergo a tetragonal to orthorhombic structural transition at
a temperature in the range 135 to 205K depending on the
alkaline earth element. Below the free standing crystals
split into equally populated structural domains, which mask intrinsic,
in-plane, anisotropic properties of the materials. Here we demonstrate a way of
mechanically detwinning CaFeAs and BaFeAs. The
detwinning is nearly complete, as demonstrated by polarized light imaging and
synchrotron -ray measurements, and reversible, with twin pattern restored
after strain release. Electrical resistivity measurements in the twinned and
detwinned states show that resistivity, , decreases along the
orthorhombic -axis but increases along the orthorhombic -axis in
both compounds. Immediately below the ratio = 1.2 and 1.5 for Ca and Ba compounds, respectively. Contrary to
CaFeAs, BaFeAs reveals an anisotropy in the nominally
tetragonal phase, suggesting that either fluctuations play a larger role above
in BaFeAs than in CaFeAs, or that
there is a higher temperature crossover or phase transition.Comment: extended versio
Sign-reversal of the in-plane resistivity anisotropy in hole-doped iron pnictides
The in-plane anisotropy of the electrical resistivity across the coupled
orthorhombic and magnetic transitions of the iron pnictides has been
extensively studied in the parent and electron-doped compounds. All these
studies universally show that the resistivity across the long
orthorhombic axis - along which the spins couple antiferromagnetically
below the magnetic transition temperature - is smaller than the resistivity
of the short orthorhombic axis , i. e. .
Here we report that in the hole-doped compounds
BaKFeAs, as the doping level increases, the
resistivity anisotropy initially becomes vanishingly small, and eventually
changes sign for sufficiently large doping, i. e. . This
observation is in agreement with a recent theoretical prediction that considers
the anisotropic scattering of electrons by spin-fluctuations in the
orthorhombic/nematic state.Comment: This paper has been replaced by the new version offering new
explanation of the experimental results first reported her
Acting and understanding
This thesis concerns the question of what it is for a subject to act. It answers this question in three steps. The first step is taken by arguing that any satisfactory answer must build on the idea that an action is something predicable of the acting subject. The second step is taken by arguing in support of an answer which does build on this idea, and does so by introducing the idea that acting is doing something which is an exercise of a particular kind of disposition on the part of the acting subject. The third step is taken by arguing that the disposition in question must be of a kind which is exercised in conditions in which the acting subject thinks they are acting. From this vantage point the thesis develops many further commitments: That action is constitutively subject to a mode of explanation that mentions the kind of disposition just mentioned; that any case of acting requires a veridical representation of a means by which the action is performed; and that a problem about the underspecified nature of desire ascriptions can be solved by appeal to the conceptual materials made available by these investigations. The thesis finally develops several objections to the account it gives, both substantive and methodological, and explains why these objections ought to be rejected
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