Spiking patterns of a neuron model to stimulus: Rich dynamics and oxygen's role

Neuronal spiking patterns, which are of fundamental importance for the understanding of information processing in neural systems, can be generated in response to different stimuli. We here investigate in detail the stimulus-induced spiking patterns in a biologically plausible neuron model in which the oxygen concentration and the dynamical concentrations of potassium, sodium, and chloride are considered. Various types of spiking patterns can be induced by the different external potassium accumulations in response to the stimulus, including two different types of epileptic seizure (SZ) and spreading depression (SD) states, two different mixed states of SD and SZ, SZ state with multi-burst, and tonic firing behaviors. Interestingly, we show that these rich spiking patterns can also be induced by the current stimulus with a low oxygen concentration. Furthermore, we reveal that the stimulus can induce two different phase transitions from the SD state to the SZ state according to the phase transition theory, which results in the different electrical activities. All these findings may provide insight into information processing in neural systems.