Abstract
This paper illustrates an informatic technique for inferring and quantifying the dynamic role of a single intrinsic current in a mechanism of neural bursting activity. We analyze the patterns of the most dominant currents in a model of half-center oscillation in the leech heartbeat central pattern generator. We find that the patterns of dominance change substantially over a cycle, allowing different local reductions to be applied to the model. The result is a hybrid dynamical systems model, which is a piecewise representation of the mechanism combining multiple vector fields and discrete state changes. The simulation of such a model tests explicit hypotheses about the mechanism and is a novel way to retain both mathematical clarity and scientific detail in answering mechanistic questions about a complex model. Several insights into the central mechanism of “escape-release” in the model are elucidated by this analysis and compared with previous studies. The broader application and extension of this technique is also discussed.
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The author would like to thank R. Lin and the anonymous reviewers for their helpful input.
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Supported by NSF CISE/CCF-0829742.
An erratum to this article can be found online at http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10867-012-9285-5.
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Clewley, R. Inferring and quantifying the role of an intrinsic current in a mechanism for a half-center bursting oscillation. J Biol Phys 37, 285–306 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10867-011-9220-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10867-011-9220-1