"We highlight that the robustness and tunability of a bursting model critically rely on currents that provide slow positive feedback to the membrane potential. Such currents have the ability to make the total conductance of the circuit negative in a timescale that is termed “slow” because it is intermediate between the fast timescale of the spike upstroke and the ultraslow timescale of even slower adaptation currents. We discuss how such currents can be assessed either in voltage-clamp experiments or in computational models. We show that, while frequent in the literature, mathematical and computational models of bursting that lack the slow negative conductance are fragile and rigid. Our results suggest that modeling the slow negative conductance of cellular models is important when studying the neuromodulation of rhythmic circuits at any broader scale."
Model Type: Neuron or other electrically excitable cell
Currents: I Na,t; I L high threshold; I T low threshold; I A; I K; I K,Ca; I Potassium
Model Concept(s): Bursting; Temporal Pattern Generation; Bifurcation
Simulation Environment: Julia (web link to model)
References:
Franci A, Drion G, Sepulchre R. (2018). Robust and tunable bursting requires slow positive feedback. Journal of neurophysiology. 119 [PubMed]