Adaptive Regulation for Noise-Aided Weak Signal Detection in Spiking Neurons

Spiking neurons usually change their membrane properties, especially ion channel activity, during adaptation or synaptic modification to improve information processing and transmission. Using simple and biophysically realistic models, our analyses reveal that activity-dependent regulation of membrane properties contributes to sensitivity adaptation that improves the neuron ability of detecting sub-threshold signals in the presence of background noises. The improvement is achieved by regulating the conductance of ion channels on the membrane, dependent on the neuron firing activity.