Significance of Pacemaker vs. Non-Pacemaker Neurons in an Excitatory Rhythmic Network

This modeling study investigates the functional role of pacemaker neurons in generating stable rhythms in the pre-Botzinger complex, a subcircuit of the respiratory pattern-generating circuitry in mammals. While the presence of pacemakers within the network is without doubt, the percentage and significance of such pacemakers is still unresolved. Here we revisited earlier network simulations by varying the fraction of pacemaker and non-pacemaker neurons within the network, and quantifying the robustness of the input parameter space and range of frequencies output by the network. Stable network rhythms were possible even with no pacemakers. However, we found that a network of at least 50% pacemakers produced the greatest range of output frequencies and had the more robust input space