Modeling Biological Noise in Firing and Bursting Neurons in the Presence of an Electromagnetic Field

Abstract

An exogenous electromagnetic field can be thought of as inducing a perturbation on membrane potential, thus acting as an input of neuronal encoding process. To investigate possible field-induced effects over neuronal response, a double compartment model is set-up, displaying a variety of firing and bursting patterns related to the coupling between fast and slow dynamics ionic channels. Channel noise, which has been shown to play a significant role in neuronal processing, is accurately modeled in both fast and slow compartments, thus resulting in a good qualitative agreement with experimental data in both temporal responses and in firing and bursting statistics. In such conditions, the effects of a field-induced electromagnetic perturbation are studied on neuronal output patterns and statistical features