Dynamical analysis of astrocyte-induced neuronal hyper-excitation

Abstract This paper introduces a computational model of integrated information in bidirectional neuron-astrocyte communication. Dynamical analysis and information transfer process are studied when stimulation of metabotropic glutamate is loaded into neuron and astrocyte in coupled model, respectively. The results show that the loading glutamate stimulus and coupling strength cause neuronal hyper-excitation, which is in some way linked to the epileptic instabilities. A period of sustained neuronal firing activities could continue after cessation of stimulation because of how long it takes for calcium concentration in astrocyte to decrease to the steady-state. Additionally, we also found that reducing the feedback of astrocyte could effectively inhibit neuronal seizure-like firing from the aspect of neuronal energy consumption in somatic firing.