title: Dynamics of spiking neurons connected by both inhibitory and electrical coupling.
abstract: We study the dynamics of a pair of intrinsically oscillating leaky integrate-and-fire neurons (identical and noise-free) connected by combinations of electrical and inhibitory coupling. We use the theory of weakly coupled oscillators to examine how synchronization patterns are influenced by cellular properties (intrinsic frequency and the strength of spikes) and coupling parameters (speed of synapses and coupling strengths). We find that, when inhibitory synapses are fast and the electrotonic effect of the suprathreshold portion of the spike is large, increasing the strength of weak electrical coupling promotes synchrony. Conversely, when inhibitory synapses are slow and the electrotonic effect of the suprathreshold portion of the spike is small, increasing the strength of weak electrical coupling promotes antisynchrony (see Fig. 10). Furthermore, our results indicate that, given a fixed total coupling strength, either electrical coupling alone or inhibition alone is better at enhancing neural synchrony than a combination of electrical and inhibitory coupling. We also show that these results extend to moderate coupling strengths.
authors.affiliation: Center for Neural Science and Courant Institute for Mathematical Science, New York University, 4 Washington Place, Rm 809, NY 10003, USA. tim.lewis@nyu.edu
authors.forename: Timothy J
authors.initials: TJ
authors.lastname: Lewis
authors.forename: John
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Rinzel
mesh_terms: D000200:Action Potentials / Q000502:physiology*; D000818:Animals; D001683:Biological Clocks / Q000502:physiology; D002462:Cell Membrane / Q000502:physiology; D002490:Central Nervous System / Q000166:cytology / Q000502:physiology*; D003344:Cortical Synchronization; D017629:Gap Junctions / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D007395:Interneurons / Q000166:cytology / Q000502:physiology*; D008959:Models, Neurological; D009415:Nerve Net / Q000166:cytology / Q000502:physiology*; D009433:Neural Inhibition / Q000502:physiology*; D009434:Neural Pathways / Q000166:cytology / Q000502:physiology*; D017711:Nonlinear Dynamics; D013569:Synapses / Q000502:physiology; D009435:Synaptic Transmission / Q000502:physiology