Quantity of Neurocomputation and Summation Types in Bear, Connors, & Michael, Neuroscience: Exploring the Brain

by Corry Shores
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Bear, Connors, & Michael

Neuroscience: Exploring the Brain

The transformation of many synaptic inputs to a single neuronal output constitutes a neural computation. The brain performs billions of neural computation every second we are alive.

(122c)

There are two types of summation: spatial and temporal.

Spatial summation is the adding together of EPSP's generated simultaneously at many different synapses on a dendrite.

Temporal summation is the adding together of EPSP's generated at the same synapse if they occur in rapid succession, within about 1-15 msec of one another. (123-124)

Bear, Mark. F., Barry W. Connors, & Michael A. Paradiso. Neuroscience: Exploring the Brain. London: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, 2007.