A Dynamical Model of Fast Intrinsic Optical Signal of Neural Burstings

Recent advances in optical imaging techniques allow us to acquire the structure of living nerve cells and their changes. While the commonly used dye-stained extrinsic optical signal mimics the intracellular voltage or the ion currents of the membrane directly, the fast intrinsic optical signal measures longer term physiological changes such as cell structure and sub-cellular level properties after a sustained intracellular spike under the electric and other stimulations. We build a 2-D computational model to simulate the dynamic behavior from neurons’ activity leading to optical functional imaging. Such a simulation model requires structural information (cellular volume) at the neuronal level to quantify optical scattering coefficients and a realistic Hodgkin-Huxley model of the neuron to be constructed. Initial computational results show the model as a good indication of the fast intrinsic optical signal.