DIVERSITY OF FIRING PATTERNS IN A TWO-COMPARTMENT MODEL NEURON: USING INTERNAL TIME DELAY AS AN INDEPENDENT VARIABLE
Firing properties of single neurons in the nervous system have been recognized to be determined by their intrinsic ion channel dynamics and extrinsic synaptic inputs. Previous studies have suggested that dendritic structures exhibit significant roles in the modulation of somatic firing behavior in neurons. Following these studies, we show that finite information transmission delay between dendrite and soma can also influence the somatic firings in neurons. Our investigation is based on a two-compartment model which can approximately reproduce the firing activity of cortical pyramidal neurons. The obtained simulation results indicate that under subthreshold stimulus, spontaneous fast spiking activity is induced by large values of time delay, while for suprathreshold stimulus, regular bursting, chaotic firing and fast spiking can be observed under different time delays. More importantly, the transition mode between these diverse firing patterns with the variation of delay shows a period-doubling phenomenon under certain stimulus intensity. Consequently, our model results can not only illustrate the influential roles of internal time delay in the generation of a diversity of neuronal firing patterns, but also provide us with frameworks for investigating the impacts of internal time delay on the firing properties of many other neurons in the nervous system.
firing patterns internal time delay compartment neuron model isi diagram