This article is part of the supplement: Seventeenth Annual Computational Neuroscience Meeting: CNS*2008 .

Poster presentation

A simplified model of dopaminergic neuron

Sorinel Adrian Oprisan

Department of Physics and Astronomy, College of Charleston, Charleston, SC 29424, USA

author email corresponding author email

from Seventeenth Annual Computational Neuroscience Meeting: CNS*2008
Portland, OR, USA. 19–24 July 2008

BMC Neuroscience 2008, 9(Suppl 1):P140doi:10.1186/1471-2202-9-S1-P140

The electronic version of this abstract is the complete one and can be found online at: http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2202/9/S1/P140

Published:

11 July 2008

© 2008 Oprisan; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.

Introduction

A minimal model of a dopamine cell in vitro in the presence of tetrodoxin (TTX) and tetraethyl ammonium (TEA) was developed to simulate two types of subthreshold oscillations: the slow oscillatory potential (SOP – see Figure 1A) and the square wave (Figure 1B) that can be produced by the abolition of the SOP by apamin. The L-type calcium current drives both types of oscillation. The small conductance potassium channel repolarizes the SOP, and we propose that the ether-a-go-go related potassium channel repolarizes the square wave. We further suggest that the role of this current in vivo is to relieve depolarization block. The model predicts that blocking the ether-a-go-go current will elongate the plateau of the square wave and blocking the hyperpolarization-activated potassium current shortens the period of oscillations. In addition, the model predicts that blocking the ether-a-go-go current will speed up the SOP. The model also predicts that calcium chelation converts SOPs into square waves by blocking the increase in the small conductance (SK) current. Multiple-parameter bifurcation diagrams were used to investigate the properties of the firing patterns generated by our model (Figure 2).

Model

The minimal model of a single-compartment Hodgkin-Huxley (HH)-type parallel conductance membrane contains the following currents: an L-type calcium current, a small conductance potassium current, a slowly-activating and fast-inactivating potassium current (tentatively identified as a ether-a-go-go current), an after-hyperpolarization current, and a linear background current (see [1,2] for detailed equations). The fast sodium current blocked by TTX and the delayed rectifier blocked by TEA are not modeled. Calcium extrusion was modeled by a nonelectrogenic pump, and buffering was modeled by assuming a fixed fraction of free calcium in the cytosol. We assumed that exogenous buffers such as BAPTA reduced this fraction [1]. We found that regardless of the values of other synaptic conductances, the model undergoes Hopf bifurcations leading to a transition from a stable steady state to a stable limit cycle. The SOP period at supercritical Hopf bifurcation points is in the range of 500 to 700 ms and gradually increases to about 1500 ms.

Acknowledgements

Supported by NASA-SCSGC NNX07AL01A grant to Rui (Jim) Qiao and Sorinel A. Oprisan and R & D grant from the College of Charleston to Sorinel A. Oprisan.

References

1. Amini B, Clark JW Jr, Canavier CC: Calcium dynamics underlying pacemaker-like and burst firing oscillations in midbrain dopaminergic neurons: A computational study.

   J Neurophysiol 1999, 82(5):2249-2261. PubMed Abstract | Publisher Full Text

2. Canavier CC, Oprisan SA, Callaway JC, Ji H, Shepard PD: Computational model predicts a role for ERG current in repolarizing plateau potentials in dopamine neurons: Implications for modulation of neuronal activity.

   J Neurophysiol 2007, 98:3006-3022. PubMed Abstract | Publisher Full Text

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