The existence of electrical communication among pyramidal cells (PCs) in the adult cortex has been debated by neuroscientists for several decades. Gap junctions (GJs) among cortical interneurons have been well documented experimentally and their functional roles have been proposed by both computational neuroscientists and experimentalists alike. Experimental evidence for similar junctions among pyramidal cells in the cortex, however, has remained elusive due to the apparent rarity of these couplings among neurons. In this work, we develop a neuronal network model that includes observed probabilities and strengths of electrotonic coupling between PCs and gap-junction coupling among interneurons, in addition to realistic synaptic connectivity among both populations. We use this network model to investigate the effect of electrotonic coupling between PCs on network behavior with the goal of theoretically addressing this controversy of existence and purpose of electrotonically coupled PCs in the cortex.

几十年来，神经科学家一直在争论成人皮层锥体细胞 (PC) 之间是否存在电通信。皮层中间神经元之间的间隙连接 (GJ) 已在实验中得到充分证明，计算神经科学家和实验学家都提出了它们的功能作用。然而，由于神经元之间的这些耦合明显罕见，皮层锥体细胞之间类似连接的实验证据仍然难以捉摸。在这项工作中，我们开发了一个神经元网络模型，其中包括观察到的 PC 之间的电耦合和中间神经元之间的间隙连接的概率和强度，以及两个群体之间真实的突触连接。