Mechanism analysis for excitatory interneurons dominating poly-spike wave and optimization of electrical stimulation

In addition to inhibitory interneurons, there exist excitatory interneurons (EINs) in the cortex, which mainly have excitatory projections to pyramidal neurons. In this study, we improve a thalamocortical model by introducing EIN, investigate the dominant role of EIN in generating spike and slow wave discharges (SWDs), and consider a non-rectangular pulse to control absence seizures. First, we display here that the improved model can reproduce typical SWDs of absence seizures. Moreover, we focus on the function of EIN by means of bifurcation analysis and find that EIN can induce transition behaviors under Hopf-type and fold limit cycle bifurcations. Specifically, the system has three stable solutions composing a tri-stable region. In this region, there are three attraction basins, which hints that external stimulation can drive the system trajectory from one basin to another, thereby eliminating abnormal oscillations. Furthermore, we compare the increasing ramp with rectangular pulse and optimize stimulation waveforms from the perspective of electrical charges input. The controlling role of the single increasing ramp to absence seizures is remarkable and the optimal stimulus parameters have been found theoretically. This work provides a computational model containing EIN and a theoretical basis for future physiological experiments and clinical research studies.