The Virtual Electrode Recording Tool for EXtracellular Potentials (VERTEX) Version 2.0: Modelling in vitro electrical stimulation of brain tissue

Neuronal circuits can be modelled in detail allowing us to predict the effects of stimulation on individual neurons. Electrical stimulation of neuronal circuits in vitro and in vivo excites a range of neurons within the tissue and measurements of neural activity, e.g the local field potential (LFP), are again an aggregate of a large pool of cells. The previous version of our Virtual Electrode Recording Tool for EXtracellular Potentials (VERTEX) allowed for the simulation of the LFP generated by a patch of brain tissue. Here, we extend VERTEX to simulate the effect of electrical stimulation through a focal electric field. We observe both direct changes in neural activity and changes in synaptic plasticity. Testing our software in a model of a rat neocortical slice, we determine the currents contributing to the LFP, the effects of paired pulse stimulation to induce short term plasticity (STP), and the effect of theta burst stimulation (TBS) to induce long term potentiation (LTP).