scholarly journals Causal Role of Thalamic Interneurons in Brain State Transitions: A Study Using a Neural Mass Model Implementing Synaptic Kinetics

Author(s):  
Basabdatta Sen Bhattacharya ◽  
Thomas P. Bond ◽  
Louise O'Hare ◽  
Daniel Turner ◽  
Simon J. Durrant
2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Melissa Reneaux ◽  
Rahul Gupta

AbstractThe dopamine (DA) hypothesis of cognitive deficits suggests that too low or too high extracellular DA concentration in the prefrontal cortex (PFC) can severely impair the working memory (WM) maintenance during delay period. Thus, there exists only an optimal range of DA where the sustained-firing activity, the neural correlate of WM maintenance, in the cortex possesses optimal firing frequency as well as robustness against noisy distractions. Empirical evidences demonstrate changes even in the D1 receptor (D1R)-sensitivity to extracellular DA, collectively manifested through D1R density and DA-binding affinity, in the PFC under neuropsychiatric conditions such as ageing and schizophrenia. However, the impact of alterations in the cortical D1R-sensitivity on WM maintenance has yet remained poorly addressed. Using a quantitative neural mass model of the prefronto-mesoprefrontal system, the present study reveals that higher D1R-sensitivity may not only effectuate shrunk optimal DA range but also shift of the range to lower concentrations. Moreover, higher sensitivity may significantly reduce the WM-robustness even within the optimal DA range and exacerbates the decline at abnormal DA levels. These findings project important clinical implications, such as dosage precision and variability of DA-correcting drugs across patients, and failure in acquiring healthy WM maintenance even under drug-controlled normal cortical DA levels.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Saba Tabatabaee ◽  
Fariba Bahrami ◽  
Mahyar Janahmadi

Increasing evidence has shown that excitatory neurons in the brain play a significant role in seizure generation. However, spiny stellate cells are cortical excitatory non-pyramidal neurons in the brain which their basic role in seizure occurrence is not well understood. In the present research, we study the critical role of spiny stellate cells or the excitatory interneurons (EI), for the first time, in epileptic seizure generation using an extended neural mass model introduced originally by Taylor and colleagues in 2014. Applying bifurcation analysis on this modified model, we investigated the rich dynamics corresponding to the epileptic seizure onset and transition between interictal and ictal states due to the EI. Our results indicate that the transition is described by a supercritical Hopf bifurcation which shapes the preictal activity in the model and suggests why before seizure onset, the amplitude and frequency of neural activities increase gradually. Moreover, we showed that 1) the altered function of GABAergic and glutamatergic receptors of EI can cause seizure, and 2) the pathway between the thalamic relay nucleus and EI facilitates the transition from interictal to the ictal activity by decreasing the preictal period. Thereafter, we considered both sensory and cortical periodic inputs to drive the model responses to various harmonic stimulations. Our results from the bifurcation analysis of the model suggest that the initial stage of the brain might be the main cause for the transition between interictal and ictal states as the stimulus frequency changes. The extended thalamocortical model shows also that the amplitude jump phenomenon and nonlinear resonance behavior result from the preictal stage of the brain. These results can be considered as a step forward to a deeper understanding of the mechanisms underlying the transition from brain normal activities to epileptic activities.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andres A Kiani ◽  
Geoffrey M Ghose ◽  
Theoden I Netoff

Neural-mass modeling of neural population data (EEG, ECoG, or LFPs) has shown promise both in elucidating the neural processes underlying cortical rhythms and changes in brain state, as well as offering a framework for testing the interplay between these rhythms and information processing. Models of cortical alpha rhythms (8 - 12 Hz) and their impact in visual sensory processing have been at the forefront of this effort, with the Jansen-Rit being one of the more popular models in this domain. The Jansen-Rit model, however, fails in reproducing key physiological observations including the level of inputs that cortical neurons receive and their responses to visual transients. To address these issues we generated a neural mass model that complies better with synaptic mediated dynamics, intrinsic alpha behavior, and produces realistic responses. The model is robust to many changes in parameter values but critically depends on the ratio of excitation to inhibition, producing response transients whose features are dependent on this ratio and alpha phase and power. The model is sufficiently flexible so as to be able to easily replicate the range of low frequency oscillations observed in different studies. Consistent with experimental observations, we find phase-dependent response dynamics to both visual and electrical stimulation using this model. The model suggests that stimulation facilitates alpha at particular phases and suppresses it in others due to a phase dependent lag in inhibitory responses. Hence, the model generates insight into the physiological parameters responsible for intrinsic oscillations and testable hypotheses regarding the interactions between visual and electrical stimulation on those oscillations.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nikola Jajcay ◽  
Caglar Cakan ◽  
Klaus Obermayer

Sleep manifests itself by the spontaneous emergence of characteristic oscillatory rhythms, which often time-lock and are implicated in the memory formation. Here, we analyze a neural mass model of the thalamo-cortical loop of which the cortical node can generate slow oscillations (approx. 1 Hz) while its thalamic component can generate sleep spindles of σ-band activity (12-15 Hz). We study the dynamics for different coupling strengths between the thalamic and cortical nodes, for different conductance values of the thalamic node's potassium leak and anomalous rectifying currents, and for different parameter regimes of the cortical node. The latter are: (1) a low activity (DOWN) state with noise-induced, transient excursions into a high activity (UP) state, (2) an adaptation induced slow oscillation limit cycle with alternating UP and DOWN states, and (3) a high activity (UP) state with noise-induced, transient excursions into the low activity (DOWN) state. During UP states, thalamic spindling is abolished or reduced. During DOWN states, the thalamic node generates sleep spindles, which in turn can cause DOWN to UP transitions in the cortical node. Consequently, this leads to spindle-induced UP state transitions in parameter regime (1), thalamic spindles induced in some but not all DOWN states in regime (2), and thalamic spindles following UP to DOWN transitions in regime (3). The spindle-induced σ-band activity in the cortical node, however, is typically strongest during the UP state, which follows a DOWN state "window of opportunity" for spindling. When the cortical node is parametrized in regime (3), the model well explains the interactions between slow oscillations and sleep spindles observed experimentally during Non-Rapid Eye Movement sleep. The model is computationally efficient and can be integrated into large-scale modeling frameworks to study spatial aspects like sleep wave propagation.


2021 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Saba Tabatabaee ◽  
Fariba Bahrami ◽  
Mahyar Janahmadi

Growing evidence suggests that excitatory neurons in the brain play a significant role in seizure generation. Nonetheless, spiny stellate cells are cortical excitatory non-pyramidal neurons in the brain, whose basic role in seizure occurrence is not well understood. In the present research, we study the critical role of spiny stellate cells or the excitatory interneurons (EI), for the first time, in epileptic seizure generation using an extended neural mass model inspired by a thalamocortical model originally introduced by another research group. Applying bifurcation analysis on this modified model, we investigated the rich dynamics corresponding to the epileptic seizure onset and transition between interictal and ictal states caused by EI connectivity to other cell types. Our results indicate that the transition between interictal and ictal states (preictal signal) corresponds to a supercritical Hopf bifurcation, and thus, the extended model suggests that before seizure onset, the amplitude and frequency of neural activities gradually increase. Moreover, we showed that (1) the altered function of GABAergic and glutamatergic receptors of EI can cause seizure, and (2) the pathway between the thalamic relay nucleus and EI facilitates the transition from interictal to ictal activity by decreasing the preictal period. Thereafter, we considered both sensory and cortical periodic inputs to study model responses to various harmonic stimulations. Bifurcation analysis of the model, in this case, suggests that the initial state of the model might be the main cause for the transition between interictal and ictal states as the stimulus frequency changes. The extended thalamocortical model shows also that the amplitude jump phenomenon and non-linear resonance behavior result from the preictal state of the modified model. These results can be considered as a step forward to a deeper understanding of the mechanisms underlying the transition from normal activities to epileptic activities.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Áine Byrne ◽  
James Ross ◽  
Rachel Nicks ◽  
Stephen Coombes

AbstractNeural mass models have been used since the 1970s to model the coarse-grained activity of large populations of neurons. They have proven especially fruitful for understanding brain rhythms. However, although motivated by neurobiological considerations they are phenomenological in nature, and cannot hope to recreate some of the rich repertoire of responses seen in real neuronal tissue. Here we consider a simple spiking neuron network model that has recently been shown to admit an exact mean-field description for both synaptic and gap-junction interactions. The mean-field model takes a similar form to a standard neural mass model, with an additional dynamical equation to describe the evolution of within-population synchrony. As well as reviewing the origins of this next generation mass model we discuss its extension to describe an idealised spatially extended planar cortex. To emphasise the usefulness of this model for EEG/MEG modelling we show how it can be used to uncover the role of local gap-junction coupling in shaping large scale synaptic waves.


2016 ◽  
Vol 26 (11) ◽  
pp. 113118 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yuzhen Cao ◽  
Liu Jin ◽  
Fei Su ◽  
Jiang Wang ◽  
Bin Deng

Author(s):  
Sheikh Md. Rabiul Islam ◽  
◽  
Md. Shakibul Islam ◽  

The electroencephalogram (EEG) is an electrophysiological monitoring strategy that records the spontaneous electrical movement of the brain coming about from ionic current inside the neurons of the brain. The importance of the EEG signal is mainly the diagnosis of different mental and brain neurodegenerative diseases and different abnormalities like seizure disorder, encephalopathy, dementia, memory problem, sleep disorder, stroke, etc. The EEG signal is very useful for someone in case of a coma to determine the level of brain activity. So, it is very important to study EEG generation and analysis. To reduce the complexity of understanding the pathophysiological mechanism of EEG signal generation and their changes, different simulation-based EEG modeling has been developed which are based on anatomical equivalent data. In this paper, Instead of a detailed model a neural mass model has been used to implement different simulation-based EEG models for EEG signal generation which refers to the simplified and straightforward method. This paper aims to introduce obtained EEG signals of own implementation of the Lopes da Silva model, Jansen-Rit model, and Wendling model in Simulink and to compare characteristic features with real EEG signals and better understanding the EEG abnormalities especially the seizure-like signal pattern.


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