Shangyou Zeng | PubMed Health

PubMed2005

Axonal oscillations in developing mammalian nerve axons.

We study neuronal spike propagation in a developing myelinated axon in various stages of its development through detailed computational modeling. Recently, a form of bursting (axonal bursting), has been reported in axons in developing nerves in the absence of potassium channels. We present a computational study using a detailed model for a myelinated nerve in development to explore under what circumstances such an effect can be expected. It is shown that axonal oscillation may be caused by backfiring between the nodes of Ranvier or through backfiring from internodal sodium channels or by reducing the thickness of the myelin wrapping the axon between the nodes of Ranvier.

Action Potentials↗

PubMed2004

Mechanism for neuronal spike generation by small and large ion channel clusters.

Neuronal action potentials are generated by clusters of ion channels between the Hillock and the first segment. If the clusters comprise a large number of sodium and potassium channels, action potentials are generated if the membrane potential exceeds a threshold of about -55 mV. Such behavior is well described by an excitable model such as, for example, the Hodgkin-Huxley equations. In this paper we show through stochastic modeling that if the size of the generating ion channel cluster is small, action potentials are generated regardless of whether the membrane potential is below or above the excitation threshold. Action potential generation is then determined by single-channel kinetics. We further show that this switch in generation mechanism manifests itself in peculiar statistical properties of the generated spike trains at small cluster sizes.

Action Potentials↗