Biological neurons show significant cell-to-cell variability but have the striking ability to maintain their key firing properties in the face of unpredictable perturbations and stochas- tic noise. Using a population of multi-compartment models consisting of soma, neurites, and axon for the lateral pyloric neuron in the crab stomatogastric ganglion, we explored how rebound bursting is preserved when the 14 channel conductances in each model are all randomly varied. The coupling between the axon and other compartments is critical for the ability of the axon to spike during bursts and consequently determines the set of successful solutions. When the coupling deviates from a biologically realistic range, the neuronal tolerance of conductance variations is lessened. Thus, the gross morphological features of these neurons enhance their robustness to perturbations of channel densities and expand the space of individual variability that can maintain a desired output pattern.
Model Type: Axon
Region(s) or Organism(s): Stomatogastric ganglion
Cell Type(s): Stomatogastric Ganglion (STG) Lateral Pyloric (LP) cell
Model Concept(s): Bursting; Invertebrate
Simulation Environment: NEURON
Implementer(s): Zang, Yunliang
References:
Zang Y, Marder E. (2023). Neuronal morphology enhances robustness to perturbations of channel densities Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 120 [PubMed]