The term high-conductance state describes a particular state of

neuron A neuron, neurone, or nerve cell is an electrically excitable cell that communicates with other cells via specialized connections called synapses. The neuron is the main component of nervous tissue in all animals except sponges and placozo ...

s in specific states of the

brain A brain is an organ that serves as the center of the nervous system in all vertebrate and most invertebrate animals. It is located in the head, usually close to the sensory organs for senses such as vision. It is the most complex organ in ...

, such as for example during

wakefulness Wakefulness is a daily recurring brain state and state of consciousness in which an individual is conscious and engages in coherent cognitive and behavioral responses to the external world. Being awake is the opposite of being asleep, in which m ...

, attentive states, or even during some anesthetized states. In individual neurons, the high-conductance state is formally defined by the fact that the total synaptic conductance received by the neuron is larger than its natural resting (or leak) conductance, so in a sense the neuron is "driven" by its inputs rather than being dominated by its intrinsic activity. High-conductance states have been well characterized experimentally, but they also have motivated numerous theoretical studies, in particular in relation to the considerable amount of "noise" present in such states. It is believed that this "

synaptic noise Synaptic noise refers to the constant bombardment of synaptic activity in neurons. This occurs in the background of a cell when potentials are produced without the nerve stimulation of an action potential, and are due to the inherently random natur ...

" has determinant properties on neuronal processing, and even may confer several computational advantages to neurons (see details in the articl
High-Conductance State
in

Scholarpedia ''Scholarpedia'' is an English-language wiki-based online encyclopedia with features commonly associated with open-access online academic journals, which aims to have quality content in science and medicine. ''Scholarpedia'' articles are written ...

). The term high-conductance state is also used to describe specific states of single

ion channel Ion channels are pore-forming membrane proteins that allow ions to pass through the channel pore. Their functions include establishing a resting membrane potential, shaping action potentials and other electrical signals by gating the flow of ...

s. In this case, the high-conductance state corresponds to an open state of the channel which is associated with a particularly high conductance compared to other states.

References

External links

High-Conductance State
article in

Neuroscience {{Neuroscience-stub