Temperature compensation in a small rhythmic circuit
Abstract
Temperature affects the conductances and kinetics of the ionic channels that underlie neuronal activity. Each membrane conductance has a different characteristic temperature sensitivity, which raises the question of how neurons and neuronal circuits can operate robustly over wide temperature ranges. To address this, we employed computational models of the pyloric network of crabs and lobsters. We produced multiple different models that exhibit a triphasic pyloric rhythm over a range of temperatures and explored the dynamics of their currents and how they change with temperature. Temperature can produce smooth changes in the relative contributions of the currents to neural activity so that neurons and networks undergo graceful transitions in the mechanisms that give rise to their activity patterns. Moreover, responses of the models to deletions of a current can be different at high and low temperatures, indicating that even a well-defined genetic or pharmacological manipulation may produce qualitatively distinct effects depending on the temperature.
Data availability
Code and parameters to reproduce the results in this work are included as supporting files
Article and author information
Author details
Funding
National Institutes of Health (T32 NS07292)
- Leandro M Alonso
National Institutes of Health (MH046742)
- Eve Marder
National Institutes of Health (R35 NS097343)
- Eve Marder
Swartz Foundation (Swartz Foundation 2017)
- Leandro M Alonso
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
Copyright
© 2020, Alonso & Marder
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.
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