TY - JOUR TI - Visualization of currents in neural models with similar behavior and different conductance densities AU - Alonso, Leandro M AU - Marder, Eve A2 - Westbrook, Gary L A2 - Skinner, Frances K A2 - Lankarany, Milad A2 - Britton, Oliver VL - 8 PY - 2019 DA - 2019/01/31 SP - e42722 C1 - eLife 2019;8:e42722 DO - 10.7554/eLife.42722 UR - https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.42722 AB - Conductance-based models of neural activity produce large amounts of data that can be hard to visualize and interpret. We introduce visualization methods to display the dynamics of the ionic currents and to display the models’ response to perturbations. To visualize the currents’ dynamics, we compute the percent contribution of each current and display them over time using stacked-area plots. The waveform of the membrane potential and the contribution of each current change as the models are perturbed. To represent these changes over a range of the perturbation control parameter, we compute and display the distributions of these waveforms. We illustrate these procedures in six examples of bursting model neurons with similar activity but that differ as much as threefold in their conductance densities. These visualization methods provide heuristic insight into why individual neurons or networks with similar behavior can respond widely differently to perturbations. KW - neuronal oscillators KW - Na+ channels KW - Ca++ channels KW - K+ channels KW - conductance-based KW - ionic channels JF - eLife SN - 2050-084X PB - eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd ER -