Stochastic encoding in sensory neurons: impulse patterns of mammalian coldreceptors

Intrinsic oscillations at the level of the membrane potential are a widespr ead feature of nerve cells. Several evidences exist that, in particular, se nsory neurons combine their oscillatory membrane potentials with intrinsic, membrane and/or synaptic noise to obtain sensitive encoding properties. An interesting example are mammalian cold receptors where stimulus transducti on results from modulation of intrinsic receptor oscillations with essentia l contribution of noise thereby generating a rich spectrum of impulse patte rns. To further explore the dynamics of these receptors we here investigate an HH-type model for oscillations and spike initiation in cold receptors. By use of a biophysically plausible temperature scaling and with addition o f noise, the model successfully mimicks the principle temperature-dependenc e of stationary impulse patterns of real cold receptors. Our results sugges t that interactions between stochastic and deterministic dynamics are of fu nctional importance for the encoding charcteristics of cold receptors. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.