Bistability of bursting and silence regimes in a model of a leech heart interneuron

Abstract

Bursting is one of the primary activity regimes of neurons. Our study is focused on determining a generic biophysical mechanism underlying the coexistence of the bursting and silent regimes observed in a neuron model. We show that the main ingredient for this mechanism is a saddle periodic orbit. The stable manifold of the orbit sets a threshold between the regimes of activity. Thus, the range of the controlling parameters, where the coexistence is observed, is limited by the bifurcations' values at which the saddle orbit appears and disappears. We show that it appears through the subcritical Andronov-Hopf bifurcation, where the equilibrium representing the silent regime loses stability, and disappears at the homoclinic bifurcation. Correspondingly, the bursting regime disappears in close proximity to the homoclinic bifurcation.