Auditory Nerve Spike Generator Modeled as a Variable Attenuator Based on a Saddle Node on Invariant Circle Bifurcation

Mammalian inner hair cells transduce the sound waves amplified by the cochlear amplifier (CA) into a graded neurotransmitter release that activates channels on auditory nerve fibers (ANF). These synaptic channels then charge its dendritic spike generator. While the outer hair cells of the CA employ positive feedback, poising on Andronov-Hopf type instabilities which make them extremely sensitive to faint sounds and make CA output strongly nonlinear, the ANF appears to be based on different principles and a different type of dynamical instability. Its spike generator “digitizes” CA output into trains of action potentials and behaves as a linear filter, rate-coding sound intensity across a wide dynamic range. Here we model the spike generator as a 3 dimensional version of a saddle node on invariant circle (SNIC) bifurcation. The generic 2d SNIC increases its spike rate as the square root of the input current above its spiking threshold. We add negative feedback in the form of a low voltage-threshold potassium conductance that slows down the generator’s rate of increase of its spike rate. A Poisson random source simulates an inner hair cell, outputting a series of noisy periodic current pulses to the model ANF whose spikes phase lock to these pulses and have a linear frequency to current relation with a wide dynamic range. Also, the spike generator compartment has a cholinergic feedback connection from the olive and experiments show that such feedback is able to alter the amount of H conductance inside the generator compartment. We show that an olive able to decrease H would be able to shift the spike generator’s dynamic range to higher sound intensities. In a quiet environment by increasing H the olive would be able to make spike trains similar to those caused by synaptic input.