Entrainment of a bursting neuron--I. typical activity

Highly regular RPA-1 oscillator neurons of the land snail Helix pomatia L. are tested for entrainment by rhythmical stimulation. Both with orthodromic and direct hyperpolarizing pulses the bursting activity could be entrained to frequencies higher or lower than, and equal to, the spontaneous one, in this order of difficulty. Depolarizing pulses give mainly entrainment to higher frequencies, but synchronization to frequencies lower than the spontaneous one was also demonstrable. Each of these different driving relations implies the consecutive stimuli to become locked to a peculiar range of phases and not to a single phase of resonance inside the cycle.