C. Meunier

a-C:H thin films deposited by radio-frequency plasma: influence of gas composition on structure, optical properties and stress levels

Abstract a-C:H thin films are deposited by plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PE-CVD) at 13.56 MHz at room temperature. Three different precursor gas mixtures are used (CH 4 , CH 4 /He, CH 4 /Ar). Structure, optical properties and stress levels are evaluated by elastic recoil detection analysis (ERDA), IR absorption, UV/vis spectrometry, Raman spectroscopy. We observe a loss of hydrogen content (bonded and not bonded) from 38 to 24 at.%, as well as an increasing of sp 2 content (from 14 to 29%) with the increase of self-bias voltage for all mixtures. Argon and helium addition to methane induce a greater graphitization of a-C:H thin films. These modifications induce a decrease of the optical gap which is set between 1.4 and 1.1 eV and an increase of the Urbach gap from 0.6 to 0.8 eV. The internal stresses are controlled by subplantation model and decrease from 4 to 1 GPa with the increase of the bias voltage. The use of argon and helium as carrier gas induce lower stress in the films.

Playing the devil's advocate: is the Hodgkin-Huxley model useful?

Hodgkin and Huxley (H-H) model for action potential generation has held firm for half a century because this relatively simple and experimentally testable model embodies the major features of membrane nonlinearity: namely, voltage-dependent ionic currents that activate and inactivate in time. However, experimental and theoretical developments of the past 20 years force one to re-evaluate its usefulness. First, the H-H model is, in its original form, limited to the two voltage-dependent currents found in the squid giant axon and it must be extended significantly if it is to deal with the excitable soma and dendrites of neurons. Second, the macroscopic and deterministic H-H model does not capture correctly the kinetics of the Na(+) channel and it cannot account for the stochastic response to current injection that arises from the discrete nature of ion channels. Third, much simpler integrate-and-fire-type models seem to be more useful for exploring collective phenomena in neuronal networks. Is the H-H model threatened, or will it continue to set the fundamental framework for exploring neuronal excitability?

How shunting inhibition affects the discharge of lumbar motoneurones: a dynamic clamp study in anaesthetized cats

In the present work, dynamic clamp was used to inject a current that mimicked tonic synaptic activity in the soma of cat lumbar motoneurones with a microelectrode. The reversal potential of this current could be set at the resting potential so as to prevent membrane depolarization or hyperpolarization. The only effect of the dynamic clamp was then to elicit a constant and calibrated increase of the motoneurone input conductance. The effect of the resulting shunt was investigated on repetitive discharges elicited by current pulses. Shunting inhibition reduced very substantially the firing frequency in the primary range without changing the slope of the current–frequency curves. The shift of the I–f curve was proportional to the conductance increase imposed by the dynamic clamp and depended on an intrinsic property of the motoneurone that we called the shunt potential. The shunt potential ranged between 11 and 37 mV above the resting potential, indicating that the sensitivity of motoneurones to shunting inhibition was quite variable. The shunt potential was always near or above the action potential voltage threshold. A theoretical model allowed us to interpret these experimental results. The shunt potential was shown to be a weighted time average of membrane voltage. The weighting factor is the phase response function of the neurone that peaks at the end of the interspike interval. The shunt potential indicates whether mixed synaptic inputs have an excitatory or inhibitory effect on the ongoing discharge of the motoneurone.

The afterhyperpolarization conductance exerts the same control over the gain and variability of motoneurone firing in anaesthetized cats

Does the afterhyperpolarization current control the gain and discharge variability of motoneurones according to the same law? We investigated this issue in lumbar motoneurones of anaesthetized cats. Using dynamic clamp, we measured the conductance, time constant and driving force of the AHP current in a sample of motoneurones and studied how the gain was correlated to these quantities. To study the action of the AHP on the discharge variability and to compare it to its action on the gain, we injected an artificial AHP‐like current in motoneurones. This increased the natural AHP. In three motoneurones, we abolished most of the natural AHP with the calcium chelator BAPTA to investigate the condition where the discharge was essentially controlled by the artificial AHP. Our results demonstrate that both the gain and the coefficient of variation of the firing rate are inversely proportional to the magnitude and to the time constant of the artificial AHP conductance. This indicates that the AHP exerts the same control over the gain and the variability. This mechanism ensures that the variability of the discharge is modulated with the gain. This guarantees a great regularity of the discharge when the motoneurone is in a low excitability state and hence good control of the force produced.

How Membrane Properties Shape the Discharge of Motoneurons: A Detailed Analytical Study

Electrophysiological experiments and modeling studies have shown that after hyperpolarization regulates the discharge of lumbar motoneurons in anesthetized cats and is an important determinant of their firing properties. However, it is still unclear how firing properties depend on slow after hyperpolarization, input conductance, and the fast currents responsible for spike generation. We study a single-compartment integrate-andfire model with a slow potassium conductance that exponentially decays between spikes. We show that this model is analytically solvable, and we investigate how passive and active membrane properties control the discharge. We show that the model exhibits three distinct firing ranges (primary, secondary, and high frequency), and we explain the origin of these three ranges. Explicit expressions are established for the gain of the steady-state current-frequency (I f) curve in the primary range and for the gain of the I f curve for the first interspike interval. They show how the gain is controlled by the maximal conductance and the kinetic parameters of the after hyperpolarization conductance. The gain also depends on the spike voltage threshold, and we compute how it is decreased by threshold accommodation (i.e., the increase of the threshold with the injected current). In contrast, the gain is not very sensitive to the input conductance. This implies that tonic synaptic activity shifts the current-frequency curve in its primary range, in agreement with experiments. Taking into account the absolute refractory period associated with spikes somewhat reduces the gain in the primary range. More importantly, it accounts for the approximately linear and steep secondary range observed in many motoneurons. In the nonphysiological high-frequency range, the behavior of the I f curve is determined by the fast voltage-dependent currents, via the amplitude of the fast repolarization afterspike, the duration of the refractory period, and voltage threshold accommodation, if present.