A reliability study of square wave bursting $\beta$-cells with noise

Abstract

Reliability of spike timing has been a hot topic recently. Howeverreliability has not been considered for bursting behavior, ascommonly observed in a variety of nerve and endocrine cells,including $\beta$-cells in intact pancreatic islets. In this paper,reliability of $\beta$-cells with noise is considered. A method tonumerically study reliability of bursting cells is presented.Reliability of a single cell will decrease as noise level becomeslarger. The reliability of networks of $\beta$-cells coupled by gapjunctions or synaptic excitation is investigated. Simulations of thenetwork of $\beta$-cells reveal that increasing noise leveldecreases the reliability. But the reliability of the network ishigher than that of single cell. The effect of coupling strength onreliability is also investigated. Reliability will decrease whencoupling strength is small and increase when coupling strength islarge.