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New Zealand Mathematics Colloquium 1999
July 6-9, 1999
Department of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Canterbury
Christchurch, New Zealand

Organizers
Doris Barnard, Therese Boustead, Chris Price, Bruce Robson, Gunter Steinke, Graeme Wake, Allan Willms

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Bursting in a model of corticotroph electrical activity
by
Paul Shorten
University of Canterbury
Coauthors: David Wall (University of Canterbury)

Many cell types exhibit bursting activity, characterised by alternating phases of near steady state behaviour and trains of rapid spike-like oscillations. A new mode of bursting behaviour has been observed in an electrophysiological model of pituitary corticotrophs. The bursting is due to the existence of a fast time scale associated with membrane action potentials, and a slow time scale associated with the gradual increase in the endoplasmic reticulum Ca2+ concentration. The basic idea is that these slow processes modulate the faster spike generating dynamics. The model exhibits different modes of bursting and we investigate transitions between these modes. Tools from bifurcation theory allow a geometric interpretation of bursting and action potential generation.

Date received: May 5, 1999

Copyright © 1999 by the author(s). The author(s) of this document and the organizers of the conference have granted their consent to include this abstract in Atlas Conferences Inc. Document # cacc-21.