Spiking Activity of L5 Pyramidal Neuron: A Computational Modeling

Abstract

Spinal cord stimulation for chronic pain or deep brain stimulation for epilepsy, there are similar other techniques using micro stimulation of tissues in order to modulate neural activity for therapeutic purposes. In addition to experimental work, computational modeling is a powerful tool to obtain characteristics of either a cluster of cell bundle or a single unit by largely exploring every single parameter. This enables to predict precisely neural responses to electrical stimulation, which ultimately improves clinical outcomes. This work uses pyramidal cell with realistic morphology from fifth layer of somatosensory cortex constructed by Blue Brain project. The biophysical properties are defined by conductance based voltage gated channels. NEURON v8.0 is used to simulate intracellular stimulation. Single cell model's validation and spike activity show that axonal compartments are the most possible area to fire for step current stimulation. This work presents insights into better computational infrastructure for parameter optimization.