Table of Contents
Chapter I: Introduction…………………………………………………….…...…1
The Mormyrid Weakly Electric Fish: Gnathonemus petersii…………...…..3
Granular Cell Integration in the Mormyromast System……………………....7
The Weakly Electric Fish as an Animal Model………………………………..11
Modeling in the NEURON simulation environment……………………..…...19
Chapter II: Methods………………………………………………………...……...23
Leakage Currents………………………………………………………………24
Na+ Currents……………………………………………………………....….25
Ca2+ Currents………………………………………………………………..…27
K+ Currents…………………………………………………………………….28
Electrical Synapses……………………………………………………….…....29
Glutamatergic Synapses…………………………………………………….....30
GABAergic Synapses…………………………………………………….…....31
Chapter III: Results………………………………………………………….….......34
Overview………………………………………………………………….…..34
Preliminary Model…………………………………………….……………….38
Models 1a and 1b……………………………………………………………...51
Models 2a and 2b…………………………………………………………..….69
Chapter IV: Discussion……………………………………………………………....90
Overview…………………………………………………………………..…..90
Voltage-dependent amplification of granular cell inputs…………………....….91
Intrinsic control of burst offset……………………………………………..….92
Extrinsic control of burst offset………………………………………………..94
Plausibility of maximum ionic conductances……………………………….….95
Consequences of the burst duration code………………….…………………..96
Future model directions………………………………………………………..98
Appendix………………..…………………………………………………………..…100
Bibliography……………………………………………………………………….…..106