Spike-frequency adaptation: Phenomenological model and experimental tests

Spike-frequency adaptation is a common feature of neural dynamics. Here we present a low-dimensional phenomenological model whose parameters can be easily determined from experimental data. We test the model on intracellular recordings from auditory receptor neurons of locusts and demonstrate that the temporal variation of discharge rate is predicted with high accuracy. We relate the model to biophysical descriptions of adaptation in conductance-based models and analyze its implications for neural computation. 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.