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Effect of channel block on the collective spiking activity of coupled stochastic Hodgkin-Huxley neurons

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Abstract

Toxins, such as tetraethylammonium (TEA) and tetrodotoxin (TTX), can make potassium or sodium ion channels poisoned, respectively, and hence reduce the number of working ion channels and lead to the diminishment of conductance. In this paper, we have studied by numerical simulations the effects of sodium and potassium ion channel poisoning on the collective spiking activity of an array of coupled stochastic Hodgkin-Huxley (HH) neurons. It is found for a given number of neurons sodium or potassium ion channel block can either enhance or reduce the collective spiking regularity, depending on the membrane patch size. For a given smaller or larger patch size, potassium and sodium ion channel block can reduce or enhance the collective spiking regularity, but they have different patch size ranges for the transformation. This result shows that sodium or potassium ion channel block might have different effects on the collective spiking activity in coupled HH neurons from the effects for a single neuron, which represents the interplay among the diminishment of maximal conductance and the increase of channel noise strength due to the channel blocks, as well as the bi-directional coupling between the neurons.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Physics & Electronic Engineering, Ludong University, Yantai, 264025, China

    YuBing Gong, Bo Xu & XiaoGuang Ma

  2. School of Photoelectricity Information Science Technology, Yantai University, Yantai, 264005, China

    JiQu Han

Authors
  1. YuBing Gong
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  2. Bo Xu
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  3. XiaoGuang Ma
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  4. JiQu Han
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Correspondence to YuBing Gong.

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Supported by the Science Foundation of Ludong University (23140301, L20072805)

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Gong, Y., Xu, B., Ma, X. et al. Effect of channel block on the collective spiking activity of coupled stochastic Hodgkin-Huxley neurons. Sci. China Ser. B-Chem. 51, 341–346 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11426-008-0010-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11426-008-0010-y

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