Subject

Neuroscience

The brain and nervous system — how neurons signal, how the mind maps the world, and the models that quantify it.

2 papers in this field

NeuroscienceBrain Research · Nov 1971

The hippocampus as a spatial map. Preliminary evidence from unit activity in the freely-moving rat

John O'Keefe and Jonathan Dostrovsky

Using extracellular single-unit recordings from the hippocampus of freely moving rats, O'Keefe and Dostrovsky observed that certain neurons fired selectively when the animal occupied particular locations or orientations within the environment. They interpreted these spatially tuned responses as preliminary evidence that the hippocampus functions as a spatial map of the animal's surroundings. This brief report introduced the concept of hippocampal 'place cells' and seeded the cognitive-map theory of hippocampal function.

place cells hippocampus spatial memory cognitive map

NeuroscienceThe Journal of Physiology · Aug 1952 Open access

A quantitative description of membrane current and its application to conduction and excitation in nerve

Alan L. Hodgkin and Andrew F. Huxley

Drawing on voltage-clamp measurements of ionic currents in the squid giant axon, Hodgkin and Huxley developed a quantitative mathematical model describing membrane current as the sum of separate sodium, potassium, and leak conductances that vary with voltage and time. Using a system of nonlinear differential equations with voltage-dependent gating variables, they reproduced the form, amplitude, and conduction velocity of the action potential and other excitation phenomena. The model unified their experimental findings and became the foundational framework for quantitative electrophysiology.

action potential electrophysiology squid axon ion channels