Dalefield, Martin2017-01-242017-01-24b43715357http://hdl.handle.net/1885/112033Adaptation of cortical neurons in response to prior stimulus history and the timecourse of recovery from adaptation were investigated at the level of action potentials using the juxtacellular single-cell loose-patch recording paradigm in the barrel cortex of juvenile rats. An experimental protocol that paired adaptor and test deflections of the principal whisker for a given neuron was applied in two phases of the study. Experiment 1 involved two adaptor conditions, differentiated by the duration of the adaptor stimulus, presented with a limited range of four adaptor-test temporal separations. Experiment 2 involved a single adaptor condition followed by an expanded range of adaptor-test temporal separations. Experiment 1 demonstrated that the time-course for recovery from adaptation was dependent on the duration of the adaptor stimulus. Experiment 2 demonstrated that recovery of action potential responses in the cortical population follows a sigmoidal pattern, in contrast to the exponential decay of adaptation at the post-synaptic potential level. Data from both experiments provided evidence for adaptation increasing trial-to-trial variability of neuronal responses to stimuli as well as reducing discriminability between the presence or absence of a test stimulus of similar characteristics to the adaptor stimulus. Morphological recovery was achieved for a sample of neurons, and case studies of the relationship between neurons’ morphology and functional behaviour provide insights for further investigations into adaptation and functional diversity within the cortex.enBarrel cortexadaptationwhiskersneural codingratsjuxtacellularsomatosensorysomatosensationTemporal Dynamics of Cortical Adaptation201510.25911/5d76327ce7f53