"All-to-all homogeneous networks of inhibitory neurons synchronize completely under the right conditions; however, many modeling studies have shown that biological levels of heterogeneity disrupt synchrony. Our fundamental scientific question is “how can neurons maintain partial synchrony in the presence of heterogeneity and noise?” A particular subset of strongly interconnected interneurons, the PV+ fast spiking basket neurons, are strongly implicated in gamma oscillations and in phase locking of nested gamma oscillations to theta. Their excitability type apparently varies between brain regions: in CA1 and the dentate gyrus they have type 1 excitability, meaning that they can fire arbitrarily slowly, whereas in the striatum and cortex they have type 2 excitability, meaning that there is a frequency threshold below which they cannot sustain repetitive firing. We constrained the models to study the effect of excitability type (more precisely bifurcation type) in isolation from all other factors. We use sparsely connected, heterogeneous, noisy networks with synaptic delays to show that synchronization properties, namely the resistance to suppression and the strength of theta phase to gamma amplitude coupling, are strongly dependent on the pairing of excitability type with the type of inhibition. ..."
Cell Type(s): Abstract single compartment conductance based cell
Simulation Environment: NEURON
Implementer(s): Tikidji-Hamburyan, Ruben [ruben.tikidji.hamburyan at gmail.com]
References:
Tikidji-Hamburyan RA, Canavier CC. (2020). Shunting Inhibition Improves Synchronization in Heterogeneous Inhibitory Interneuronal Networks with Type 1 Excitability Whereas Hyperpolarizing Inhibition is Better for Type 2 Excitability. eNeuro. 7 [PubMed]