An analog circuit implementation of a Huber-Braun cold receptor neuron model

Abstract

We present the design and implementation of an electronic device that, using off the shelf discrete analog components, implements the mathematical model of a cold receptor neuron called Huber-Braun. This model describes the electrical behavior of certain kinds of receptors when interacting with their environment, and it consists of a set of differential equations that has only been solved by numeric simulations. By these means a chaotic behavior has been found. An analog computer can be relevant for further analysis and validation of the model. The results obtained by means of numeric simulations and through our analog circuit simulator are consistent. In particular, temperature and external current bifurcation diagrams were successfully built. Finally, the electronic device allows the observation of all relevant variables and most of the expected behavior (tonic firing, chaotic, burst discharge, subthreshold oscillation and steady state).

A new bifurcation parameter in a modified Huber-Braun model

“…Altering the temperature, the Homoclinic bifurcation was found in the classic model and the resulting bifurcation diagram was rebuilt [15]. Using the external current injected to the model via an invasive electrical stimulation, a period doubling bifurcation has been observed in the model and its bifurcation diagram for the external current has been produced [16]. In a recent study, a network of HuberBraun neurons has been simulated and some control protocols using a feedback current have been investigated [3].…”

“…Thus, the inter-spike interval (ISI) which is the time between two successive spikes, is one of the important measures that should be calculated. Additionally, depending on the changes in temperature, the bifurcations occur in the values of inter-spike interval [15,16]. According to the studies on the effects of transcranial magnetic stimulation on spike trains of epilepsy [11] [17], we estimated the peak to peak amplitude of rTMSinduced voltage to be around 4 mV.…”