Nonlinear properties of medial entorhinal cortex neurons reveal frequency selectivity during multi-sinusoidal stimulation

The neurons in layer II of the medial entorhinal cortex are part of the grid cell network involved in the representation of space. Many of these neurons are likely to be stellate cells with specific oscillatory and firing properties important for their function. A fundamental understanding of the nonlinear basis of these oscillatory properties is critical for the development of theories of grid cell firing. In order to evaluate the behavior of stellate neurons, measurements of their quadratic responses were used to estimate a second order Volterra kernel. This paper uses an operator theory, termed quadratic sinusoidal analysis (QSA), which quantitatively determines that the quadratic response accounts for a major part of the nonlinearity observed at membrane potential levels characteristic of normal synaptic events. Practically, neurons were probed with multi-sinusoidal stimulations to determine a Hermitian operator that captures the quadratic function in the frequency domain. We have shown that the frequency content of the stimulation plays an important role in the characteristics of the nonlinear response, which can distort the linear response as well. Stimulations with enhanced low frequency amplitudes evoked a different nonlinear response than broadband profiles. The nonlinear analysis was also applied to spike frequencies and it was shown that the nonlinear response of subthreshold membrane potential at resonance frequencies near the threshold is similar to the nonlinear response of spike trains.