Temperature compensation in a small rhythmic circuit

  1. Leandro M Alonso  Is a corresponding author
  2. Eve Marder
  1. Brandeis University, United States

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

  1. Leandro M Alonso

    Volen Center, Brandeis University, Waltham, United States
    For correspondence
    lalonso@brandeis.edu
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0001-8211-2855
  2. Eve Marder

    Volen Center, Brandeis University, Waltham, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0001-9632-5448

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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  1. Leandro M Alonso
  2. Eve Marder
(2020)
Temperature compensation in a small rhythmic circuit
eLife 9:e55470.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.55470

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https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.55470

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