Neuronal excitability study through Phase Response Curve of one and two-compartment conductance-based models

Abstract

Neuroscience is a multidisciplinary science studying the structure and function of the nervous system. In recent decades, research in neuroscience has seen significant advances. Central Pattern Generator (CPG) in the crustacean stomatogastric nervous system generate rhythmic behaviors such as walking, swimming, and breathing. Because it has about 30 large neurons, easily to record from, and continues to produce rhythmic behavior when removed from the Cancer Borealis, CPG are used for experimental and computational research. This work is inspired by research done on GPCs and is studying neuronal excitability from a phase response point of view. This method is called Phase Response Curve (PRC). This study is based on one and two-compartment conductance-based models as well as on results obtained experimentally. This work was conducted for 4 months in the Marder Lab, part of Brandeis university in Boston. The results obtained during this project show fine structures which appear systematically during current injection during the duty cycle. For higher order PRCs, the same structures are observed. However, other structures also appear for later injection phases. However, this observation is only valid for models with one compartment. The structures observed for higher order PRCs seem to be the propagation of the structures observed for first order PRCs. In addition, the phase variations are greater for single compartment models. This is due to the fact that all of the biological processes are modeled in the soma, without filters or electrical couplings, which results in more important effects than they should be.