On the firing variability of the integrate-and-fire neurons with partial reset in the presence of inhibition

It has beers reported (Phys, Rev. Lett. 82 (1999) 4731) that the firing variability of integrate-and-fire (I&F) neurons is strongly dependent on the level of inhibitory input unlike the Hodgkin-Huxley and FitzHugh-Nagumo neurons. In this paper we demonstrate that when an I&F neuron with random synaptic input is subjected to partial somatic reset, its firing is only very weakly dependent on the level of inhibitory input. Therefore, in contrast to what has been suggested above, the I&F neuron equipped with the partial somatic reset mechanism can replace biophysical models in stochastic network modelling. (C) 2002 Published by Elsevier Science B.V.