Visually evoked calcium action potentials in cat striate cortex

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Abstract
EARLY intracellular studies of cerebral cortical neurons indicated that synaptic input evokes dendritic action potentials that convey information towards the soma1.Subsequent work in vitro established that neocortical neurons produce dendritic Ca2 action potentials2–5. To determine whether natural stimuli elicit Ca2+ spikes, we combined the techniques of whole-cell recording6,7, pharmacology8 and quantitative receptive field mapping9. Our findings show that visual stimulation routinely evoked Ca2+ spikes in distinct functional10 and anatomical11 classes of cells in different layers of the cat striate cortex12. Hence regenerative Ca2+ potentials appear to play a role in both the initial and later stages of cortical sensory processing.