Plastic Changes in Isolated Neurons

From integrative biology to the nerve impulse: Rethinking neural information and semiotics in functional systems perspective

“…In particular, the further elaborations of Anokhin’s hypothesis and the discovery of selective forms of excitable membrane plasticity may deserve particular attention in this regard (Tsitolovsky & Babkina, 1992, 2002; cf. also Sinz et al, 1981; Ratushnyak & Zapara, 2009). To our knowledge, these are the only experimental works to date to demonstrate that individual neurons are able to assess not only the magnitude but also the meaning of afferent signals converging on neural cells, and that information of contrasting functional valence is not processed in a summative way but can be differentially processed on the level of excitable membranes (e.g., as a result of learning) (Sandler & Tsitolovsky, 2008; Tsitolovsky & Babkina, 1992, 2002).…”

“…Although in recent years, considerable evidence has accumulated pointing to highly complex forms of signal analysis and pattern recognition in single neurons (e.g., Caruso et al, 2019; Li et al, 2016; Wiederman & O'Carroll, 2013), most of these findings are difficult to interpret with respect to their single cell mechanisms, as the latter are usually hard to dissociate from wider network functions. In this sense, the works by Anokhin and associates, using cellular analogues of conditional learning, including completely isolated neural soma preparations, may retain specific interest (Ratushnyak & Zapara, 2009; Sinz et al, 1981; Zapara et al, 1989). In particular, these lines of work have shown that depending on the associative value assigned to particular inputs in the course of learning, their processing on the neural membrane could be altered in a selective and stimulus-specific way (Sandler & Tsitolovsky, 2008; Tsitolovsky and Babkina 1991; 2002), presumably based on compartmentalized changes to the intracellular networks controlling local membrane excitability (cf.…”