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Dopaminergic Cell Models

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Encyclopedia of Computational Neuroscience

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Definition

  • Dopaminergic (DA) neurons are defined as neurons synthesizing and containing the neurotransmitter and neurohormone dopamine. Such neurons release dopamine synaptically as well as dendritically (Bustos et al. 2004).

  • The electrophysiological signatures of this neuron are broad action potentials (Fig. 1) and a low-frequency, regular spontaneous activity (Fig. 2a).

  • A distinctive property of the DA neuron is that it differentially responds to different types of excitatory synaptic inputs (Fig. 2a and b).

  • Models have explained these properties and connected them with one another and with particular current compositions (Figs. 3 and 4).

    Dopaminergic Cell Models, Fig. 1
    figure 537 figure 537

    A single spike of a DA neuron

    Full size image

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Mathematical Sciences, Indiana University & Purdue University Indianapolis, 46204, Indianapolis, IN, USA

    Alexey Kuznetsov

  2. Group for Neural Theory, Laboratoire de Neurosciences Cognitives (LNC), Département d’Études Cognitives, École Normale Supérieure, Paris, France

    Boris Gutkin

  3. National Research University Higher School of Economics, Center for Cognition and Decision Making, Moscow, Russia

    Boris Gutkin

Authors
  1. Alexey Kuznetsov
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  2. Boris Gutkin
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Correspondence to Alexey Kuznetsov .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biology, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, USA

    Dieter Jaeger

  2. Department of Biomedical Engineering, Florida International University, Miami, FL, USA

    Ranu Jung

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Kuznetsov, A., Gutkin, B. (2015). Dopaminergic Cell Models. In: Jaeger, D., Jung, R. (eds) Encyclopedia of Computational Neuroscience. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-6675-8_86

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