Zhang Mingming, Zhao Zongya, He Ping, Wang Jue
The Key Laboratory of Biomedical Information Engineering of Ministry of Education, and Institute of Biomedical Engineering, School of Life Science and Technology, Xi'an Jiaotong University; National Engineering Research Center of Health Care and Medical Devices, Xi'an Jiaotong University Branch, Xi'an 710049, P.R. China.
Department of Biomedical, Industrial and Human Factors Engineering, Wright State University, Dayton, Ohio, USA.
Biomed Mater Eng. 2014;24(6):2635-44. doi: 10.3233/BME-141080.
Gap junctions are the mechanism for striatal fast-spiking interneurons (FSIs) to interconnect with each other and play an important role in determining the physiological functioning of the FSIs. To investigate the effect of gap junctions on the firing activities and synchronization of the network for different external inputs, a simple network with least connections and a Newman-Watts small-world network were constructed. Our research shows that both properties of neural networks are related to the conductance of the gap junctions, as well as the frequency and correlation of the external inputs. The effect of gap junctions on the synchronization of network is different for inputs with different frequencies and correlations. The addition of gap junctions can promote the network synchrony in some conditions but suppress it in others, and they can inhibit the firing activities in most cases. Both the firing rate and synchronization of the network increase along with the increase of the electrical coupling strength for inputs with low frequency and high correlation. Thus, the network of coupled FSIs can act as a detector for synchronous synaptic input from cortex and thalamus.
缝隙连接是纹状体快速放电中间神经元（FSIs）相互连接的机制，在决定FSIs的生理功能方面发挥着重要作用。为了研究缝隙连接对不同外部输入下网络放电活动和同步性的影响，构建了一个连接最少的简单网络和一个纽曼-瓦特小世界网络。我们的研究表明，神经网络的这两个特性都与缝隙连接的电导以及外部输入的频率和相关性有关。缝隙连接对网络同步性的影响因输入频率和相关性的不同而不同。在某些情况下，缝隙连接的添加可以促进网络同步，但在其他情况下则会抑制网络同步，并且在大多数情况下它们会抑制放电活动。对于低频和高相关性的输入，网络的放电率和同步性都随着电耦合强度的增加而增加。因此，耦合FSIs网络可以作为来自皮层和丘脑的同步突触输入的检测器。
