Activities
Eve Marder
Variability, Homeostasis, and Compensation in Rhythmic Neuronal Networks
Neurons can live many years while ion channels and receptors turn
over in neuronal membranes in minutes, hours, days or
weeks. Therefore homeostatic mechanisms are needed to provide stable
neuronal and network function over an animal's lifetime.
Consequently, it is important to determine how tightly regulated
synaptic and intrinsic properties must be to ensure adequate network
performance. Moreover, it is important to determine the extent to
which compensatory mechanisms allow for multiple solutions to the
production of similar behavior. I will use examples from theoretical
and experimental studies using the crustacean stomatogastric nervous
system to argue that synaptic and intrinsic currents can vary far
more than the output of the circuit in which they are found. These
data have significant implications for the mechanisms that maintain
stable function over the animal's lifetime, and for the kinds of
changes that allow the nervous system to recover function after injury.