Spiking patterns of a minimal neuron to ELF sinusoidal electric field

Neuron as the main information carrier in neural systems is able to generate diverse spiking trains in response to different stimuli. Neuronal spiking patterns are related to the information processing in neural system. This paper investigates the dynamical behaviors of a two-dimensional minimal neuron model exposed to externally-applied extremely low frequency (ELF) sinusoidal electric field (EF). By numerical stimulation, it is found that neuron can exhibit different spiking patterns such as p:q mode-locking (i.e. a periodic oscillation defined as p action potentials generated by q cycle stimulations) and chaotic behaviors, depending on the values of stimulus frequencies. Transitions between different spiking patterns during exposure to the external EF are explored by interspike intervals (ISIs) and average firing rate. It is found that frequencies of the external EF can act as a bifurcation parameter, whose small change can cause the transition in neuronal behaviors. It is shown that a rich bifurcation structure including period-adding without chaos and mode-locking alternated with chaos suggests frequency discrimination of the neuronal firing patterns. Our results can provide a useful insight into the organization of similar bifurcation structures in excitable systems such as neurons under periodic forcing. Through detail analysis of the spiking patterns, we have explained how neuron's information (spiking patterns) encodes the stimulus information (frequency), and vice versa.