Journal
FRONTIERS IN NEURAL CIRCUITS
Volume 7, Issue -, Pages -Publisher
FRONTIERS MEDIA SA
DOI: 10.3389/fncir.2013.00005
Keywords
response clamp; control; closed-loop; physiology; psychophysics
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Funding
- European Union Seventh Framework Program FP7 [269459]
- Ministry of Science and Technology of the State of Israel
- MATERA [3-7878]
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The voltage clamp method, pioneered by Hodgkin, Huxley, and Katz, laid the foundations to neurophysiological research. Its core rationale is the use of closed-loop control as a tool for system characterization. A recently introduced method, the response clamp, extends the voltage clamp rationale to the functional, phenomenological level. The method consists of on-line estimation of a response variable of interest (e.g., the probability of response or its latency) and a simple feedback control mechanism designed to tightly converge this variable toward a desired trajectory. In the present contribution I offer a perspective on this novel method and its applications in the broader context of system identification and characterization. First, I demonstrate how internal state variables are exposed using the method, and how the use of several controllers may allow for a detailed, multi-variable characterization of the system. Second, I discuss three different categories of applications of the method: (1) exploration of intrinsically generated dynamics, (2) exploration of extrinsically generated dynamics, and (3) generation of input-out put trajectories. The relation of these categories to similar uses in the voltage clamp and other techniques is also discussed. Finally, I discuss the method's limitations, as well as its possible synthesis with existing complementary approaches.
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