Title
Motoneuron membrane potentials follow a time inhomogeneous jump diffusion process.
Abstract
Stochastic leaky integrate-and-fire models are popular due to their simplicity and statistical tractability. They have been widely applied to gain understanding of the underlying mechanisms for spike timing in neurons, and have served as building blocks for more elaborate models. Especially the Ornstein-Uhlenbeck process is popular to describe the stochastic fluctuations in the membrane potential of a neuron, but also other models like the square-root model or models with a non-linear drift are sometimes applied. Data that can be described by such models have to be stationary and thus, the simple models can only be applied over short time windows. However, experimental data show varying time constants, state dependent noise, a graded firing threshold and time-inhomogeneous input. In the present study we build a jump diffusion model that incorporates these features, and introduce a firing mechanism with a state dependent intensity. In addition, we suggest statistical methods to estimate all unknown quantities and apply these to analyze turtle motoneuron membrane potentials. Finally, simulated and real data are compared and discussed. We find that a square-root diffusion describes the data much better than an Ornstein-Uhlenbeck process with constant diffusion coefficient. Further, the membrane time constant decreases with increasing depolarization, as expected from the increase in synaptic conductance. The network activity, which the neuron is exposed to, can be reasonably estimated to be a threshold version of the nerve output from the network. Moreover, the spiking characteristics are well described by a Poisson spike train with an intensity depending exponentially on the membrane potential.
Year
DOI
Venue
2011
10.1007/s10827-011-0326-z
Journal of Computational Neuroscience
Keywords
Field
DocType
Statistical methods in neuroscience,Membrane time constants,State dependent firing intensity,Ornstein–Uhlenbeck process,Square-root model,Synaptic fluctuations
Statistical physics,Membrane potential,Spike train,Control theory,Simulation,Jump diffusion,Depolarization,Ornstein–Uhlenbeck process,Poisson distribution,Time constant,Mathematics,Exponential growth
Journal
Volume
Issue
ISSN
31
3
1573-6873
Citations 
PageRank 
References 
5
0.60
17
Authors
4
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Patrick Jahn150.60
Rune W Berg271.34
Jørn Hounsgaard385.30
Susanne Ditlevsen4577.84