Refractoriness and frequency following behavior in a model of electrical stimulation of mammalian myelinated nerve fibers

The refractory behavior of a multiple nonlinear node model of mammalian myelinated nerve fibers is studied. It is shown that the model predicts the occurrence of abortive spikes towards the end of the absolute refractory period and that both the spike amplitude and the spike conduction velocity depend on the stimulus repetition rate. It is concluded that impulse conduction properties rather than the frequency following behavior of a single node determine the firing properties at high stimulus rates.