Hybrid experimental and model approaches for the caracterization of Lymnaea stagnalis neural activity. Part. II: Design and implementation of hybrid circuits in Lymnaea stagnalis

Abstract

Hybrid circuits bring together living and model neural activity, adapting each other into one unique circuit. This technique allows advanced studies of neural dynamics and the implementation of novel experimental protocols. In this project, a hybrid experiment has been designed to test the interaction of dynamic synapses and intrinsic neural properties such as subthreshold oscillations in shaping non-trivial responses to simple spike trains. For this purpose, a conductance-based model with subthreshold oscillations has been studied with this type of stimulation in order to run a prove-of-concept experiment to map input/output relationships. Moreover, it has been implemented in a real-time software tool, RTXI, to induce subthreshold oscillations into a quiescent living neuron and to perform the analysis in living neurons. This report also discusses additional validation experiments on this approach by using RTXI implementations in different scenarios.