Neuronal modeling with intracellular calcium signaling

Cytosolic Ca(2+) ions play an important role in the regulation of numerous aspects of cellular activity in virtually all cell types. There is a complex interaction between the neuronal electrical signals on plasma membrane and the chemical signals of intracellular calcium. Each neuron can be considered as a binary membrane system with plasma membrane and endoplasmic reticulum membrane, and the neuronal endoplasmic reticulum can be regarded as a neuron-within-a-neuron. This review explores the simulation modeling of neuronal dynamics mutually coupled with the intracellular calcium signaling released from endoplasmic reticulum through the inositol 1,4,5-trisphosphate receptor calcium channels. We show that a current trend is to include the intracellular calcium dynamics into the neuronal models, and the frontier of this research is now shifting to spatial neuronal models with diffusing intracellular calcium. It is expected that more important results will be obtained with the neuronal models incorporating the intracellular calcium dynamics, especially the spatial models considering the calcium diffusion both in soma and dendritic branches.