Thornton Christopher, Hutchings Frances, Kaiser Marcus
Interdisciplinary Computing and Complex bioSystems (ICOS) Research Group, Newcastle University, UK, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE4 5TG, UK.
Institute of Neuroscience, Newcastle University, UK, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE2 4HH, UK.
Wellcome Open Res. 2019 Feb 1;4:20. doi: 10.12688/wellcomeopenres.15058.1. eCollection 2019.
Neuronal circuits can be modelled in detail allowing us to predict the effects of stimulation on individual neurons. Electrical stimulation of neuronal circuits and excites a range of neurons within the tissue and measurements of neural activity, e.g the local field potential (LFP), are again an aggregate of a large pool of cells. The previous version of our Virtual Electrode Recording Tool for EXtracellular Potentials (VERTEX) allowed for the simulation of the LFP generated by a patch of brain tissue. Here, we extend VERTEX to simulate the effect of electrical stimulation through a focal electric field. We observe both direct changes in neural activity and changes in synaptic plasticity. Testing our software in a model of a rat neocortical slice, we determine the currents contributing to the LFP, the effects of paired pulse stimulation to induce short term plasticity (STP), and the effect of theta burst stimulation (TBS) to induce long term potentiation (LTP).
神经元回路可以被详细建模,这使我们能够预测刺激对单个神经元的影响。对神经元回路进行电刺激会激发组织内一系列神经元,而神经活动的测量,例如局部场电位(LFP),同样是大量细胞的集合。我们之前的细胞外电位虚拟电极记录工具(VERTEX)版本能够模拟由一块脑组织产生的局部场电位。在这里,我们扩展VERTEX以模拟通过聚焦电场进行电刺激的效果。我们观察到神经活动的直接变化以及突触可塑性的变化。在大鼠新皮质切片模型中测试我们的软件时,我们确定了对局部场电位有贡献的电流、成对脉冲刺激诱导短期可塑性(STP)的效果以及theta爆发刺激(TBS)诱导长期增强(LTP)的效果。