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DRt neuron model (Sousa et al., 2014)

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Accession:151949
Despite the importance and significant clinical impact of understanding information processing in the nociceptive system, the functional properties of neurons in many parts of this system are still unknown. In this work we performed whole-cell patch-clamp recording in rat brainstem blocks to characterize the electrophysiological properties of neurons in the dorsal reticular nucleus (DRt), a region known to be involved in pronociceptive modulation. We also compared properties of DRt neurons with those in the adjacent parvicellular reticular nucleus (PCRt) and in neighboring regions outside the reticular formation. We found that neurons in the DRt and PCRt had similar electrophysiological properties and exhibited mostly tonic-like firing patterns, whereas neurons outside the reticular formation showed a larger diversity of firing-patterns. The dominance of tonic neurons in the DRt supports previous conclusions that these neurons encode stimulus intensity through their firing frequency.
Reference:
1 . Sousa M, Szucs P, Lima D, Aguiar P (2014) The pronociceptive dorsal reticular nucleus contains mostly tonic neurons and shows a high prevalence of spontaneous activity in block preparation. J Neurophysiol 111:1507-18 [PubMed]
Model Information (Click on a link to find other models with that property)
Model Type: Neuron or other electrically excitable cell;
Brain Region(s)/Organism:
Cell Type(s): Hodgkin-Huxley neuron;
Channel(s): I Na,t; I K; I K,Ca; I Calcium;
Gap Junctions:
Receptor(s):
Gene(s):
Transmitter(s):
Simulation Environment: NEURON;
Model Concept(s): Activity Patterns;
Implementer(s): Aguiar, Paulo [pauloaguiar at fc.up.pt];
Search NeuronDB for information about:  I Na,t; I K; I K,Ca; I Calcium;
TITLE decay of internal calcium concentration
:
: Internal calcium concentration due to calcium currents and pump.
: Differential equations.
:
: Simple model of ATPase pump with 3 kinetic constants (Destexhe 92)
:     Cai + P <-> CaP -> Cao + P  (k1,k2,k3)
: A Michaelis-Menten approximation is assumed, which reduces the complexity
: of the system to 2 parameters: 
:       kt = <tot enzyme concentration> * k3  -> TIME CONSTANT OF THE PUMP
:	kd = k2/k1 (dissociation constant)    -> EQUILIBRIUM CALCIUM VALUE
: The values of these parameters are chosen assuming a high affinity of 
: the pump to calcium and a low transport capacity (cfr. Blaustein, 
: TINS, 11: 438, 1988, and references therein).  
:
: Units checked using "modlunit" -> factor 10000 needed in ca entry
:
: VERSION OF PUMP + DECAY (decay can be viewed as simplified buffering)
:
: All variables are range variables
:
:
: This mechanism was published in:  Destexhe, A. Babloyantz, A. and 
: Sejnowski, TJ.  Ionic mechanisms for intrinsic slow oscillations in
: thalamic relay neurons. Biophys. J. 65: 1538-1552, 1993)
:
: Written by Alain Destexhe, Salk Institute, Nov 12, 1992
:
: "The normal resting [Ca2+]i lies in the range of 30 to 200 nM 
: in living cells." (Hille 2001)
: Parameter changes by Paulo Aguiar and Mafalda Sousa, IBMC, May 2008
: pauloaguiar@fc.up.pt; mafsousa@ibmc.up.pt



INDEPENDENT {t FROM 0 TO 1 WITH 1 (ms)}

NEURON {
	SUFFIX CaIntraCellDyn
	USEION ca READ ica, cai WRITE cai	
        RANGE cai_new, depth, cai_inf, cai_tau
}

UNITS {
	(molar) = (1/liter)		: moles do not appear in units
	(mM)	= (millimolar)
	(um)	= (micron)
	(mA)	= (milliamp)
	(msM)	= (ms mM)
	FARADAY = (faraday) (coulomb)
}


PARAMETER {
	depth	= 0.1	  (um)		: depth of shell
	cai_tau	= 2.0     (ms)		: rate of calcium removal
	cai_inf	= 50.0e-6 (mM)		: equilibrium intracellular calcium concentration
	cai		  (mM)
}

STATE {
	cai_new		(mM) 
}

INITIAL {

	cai_new = cai_inf
}

ASSIGNED {
	ica		(mA/cm2)
	drive_channel	(mM/ms)
}
	
BREAKPOINT {
	SOLVE state METHOD euler
}

DERIVATIVE state { 

	drive_channel =  - (10000) * ica / (2 * FARADAY * depth)
	if (drive_channel <= 0.) { drive_channel = 0.  }   : cannot pump inward 
         
	cai_new' = drive_channel + (cai_inf-cai_new)/cai_tau
	cai = cai_new
}

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