title: A synaptic input portal for a mapped clock oscillator model of neuronal electrical rhythmic activity.
abstract: Neuronal electrical oscillations play a central role in a variety of situations, such as epilepsy and learning. The mapped clock oscillator (MCO) model is a general model of transmembrane voltage oscillations in excitable cells. In order to be able to investigate the behaviour of neuronal oscillator populations, we present a neuronal version of the model. The neuronal MCO includes an extra input portal, the synaptic portal, which can reflect the biological relationships in a chemical synapse between the frequency of the presynaptic action potentials and the postsynaptic resting level, which in turn affects the frequency of the postsynaptic potentials. We propose that the synaptic input-output relationship must include a power function in order to be able to reproduce physiological behaviour such as resting level saturation. One linear and two power functions (Butterworth and sigmoidal) are investigated, using the case of an inhibitory synapse. The linear relation was not able to produce physiologically plausible behaviour, whereas both the power function examples were appropriate. The resulting neuronal MCO model can be tailored to a variety of neuronal cell types, and can be used to investigate complex population behaviour, such as the influence of network topology and stochastic resonance.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Biomaterials and Biomedical Engineering, Edward S Rogers Sr Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Toronto, Toronto, M5S 3G9 Canada.
authors.forename: José
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Zariffa
authors.forename: Mark
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Ebden
authors.forename: Berj L
authors.initials: BL
authors.lastname: Bardakjian
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001683:Biological Clocks / Q000502:physiology*; D003198:Computer Simulation; D005246:Feedback / Q000502:physiology; D006624:Hippocampus / Q000502:physiology; D008959:Models, Neurological; D009415:Nerve Net / Q000502:physiology*; D009433:Neural Inhibition / Q000502:physiology*; D009474:Neurons / Q000502:physiology*; D010507:Periodicity; D051381:Rats; D009435:Synaptic Transmission / Q000502:physiology*