Energetics based spike generation of a single neuron: simulation results and analysis

Existing current based models that capture spike activity, though useful in studying information processing capabilities of neurons, fail to throw light on their internal functioning. It is imperative to develop a model that captures the spike train of a neuron as a function of its intracellular parameters for non-invasive diagnosis of diseased neurons. This is the first ever article to present such an integrated model that quantifies the inter-dependency between spike activity and intracellular energetics. The generated spike trains from our integrated model will throw greater light on the intracellular energetics than existing current models. Now, an abnormality in the spike of a diseased neuron can be linked and hence effectively analyzed at the energetics level. The spectral analysis of the generated spike trains in a time–frequency domain will help identify abnormalities in the internals of a neuron. As a case study, the parameters of our model are tuned for Alzheimer’s disease and its resultant spike trains are studied and presented. This massive initiative ultimately aims to encompass the entire molecular signaling pathways of the neuronal bioenergetics linking it to the voltage spike initiation and propagation; due to the lack of experimental data quantifying the inter dependencies among the parameters, the model at this stage adopts a particular level of functionality and is shown as an approach to study and perform disease modeling at the spike train and the mitochondrial bioenergetics level.