An influence of spontaneous spike rates on information transmission in a spherical bushy neuron model with stochastic ion channels

This article presents an effect of spontaneous spike firing rates on information transmission of the spike trains in a spherical bushy neuron model of antero-ventral cochlear nuclei. In computer simulations, the synaptic current stimuli ascending from auditory nerve fibers (ANFs) were modeled by a filtered inhomogeneous Poisson process modulated with sinusoidal functions, while the stochastic sodium and stochastic high- and low-threshold potassium channels were incorporated into a single compartment model of the soma in spherical bushy neurons. The information rates were estimated from the entropies of the inter-spike intervals of the spike trains to quantitatively evaluate information transmission in the spherical busy neuron model. The results show that the information rates increased, reached a maximum, and then decreased as the rate of spontaneous spikes from the ANFs increased, implying a resonance phenomenon dependent on the rate of spontaneous spikes from ANFs. In conclusion, this phenomenon similar to the stochastic resonance would be observed due to that spontaneous random spike firings coming from auditory nerves may act as an origin of fluctuation or noise, and these findings may play a key role in the design of better auditory prostheses.