RESEARCH ON THE ANALOGICAL SIMULATION OF NEURAL BEHAVIOR.
Abstract
The Hodgkin-Huxley descriptions of electrically excitable conductances are combined with the Eccles descriptions of synaptic conductances to provide the basis of an electronic analog of nerve-cell membrane. Studies with this analog reveal that the system of synaptic and electrically excitable conductances can easily be extended to account for many forms of neuronal behavior previously unexplained, including the following: facilitation, antifacilitation and various forms of after effects in response to synaptic inputs; the three basic forms of spontaneous neuronal potentials (sinusoidal, sawtoothed and spikes); and nonperiodic spike generation, such as the productions of spike pairs and multimodal spike-interval histograms. In addition, the analogs are used to explore interactions of spatially distributed neuronal processes including the effects of coupling an integrative region (such as a soma) to a spike-initiator region (such as an axon Hillock), and the propagation of potentials along an axon. Among other things, these studies reveal mechanisms for resetting of the soma potential by invading spikes as well as many interesting phenomena associated with nonuniform conduction of voltage waveforms along an axon. Finally, the analogs are used to study the consequences of simple connections between two neurons. The significant results include the prediction of spike-burst formation in a mutually exciting pair of neurons, and the possibility of stable synchrony in a pair of independently driven mutually inhibiting neurons. (Author)
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Apr 15, 1967
- Accession Number
- AD0653614
Entities
People
- Edwin R. Lewis