Quantitative Modeling of Spatio-Temporal Dynamics of inferior Olive Neurons with a Simple Conductance-Based Model

Inferior olive (IO) neurons project to the cerebellum and contribute to motor control. They can show intriguing spatio-temporal dynamics with rhythmic and synchronized spiking. IO neurons are connected to their neighbors via gap junctions to form an electrically coupled network, and so it is considered that this coupling contributes to the characteristic dynamics of this nucleus. Here, we demonstrate that a gap junction-coupled network composed of simple conductance-based model neurons (a simplified version of a Hodgkin-Huxley type neuron) reproduce important aspects of IO activity. The simplified phenomenological model neuron facilitated the analysis of the single cell and network properties of the IO while still quantitatively reproducing the spiking patterns of complex spike activity observed by simultaneous recording in anesthetized rats. The results imply that both intrinsic bistability of each neuron and gap junction coupling among neurons play key roles in the generation of the spatio-temporal dynamics of IO neurons.