Noise-assisted spike propagation in myelinated neurons

TL;DR

This paper investigates how intrinsic noise from ion channels influences spike propagation in myelinated neurons, revealing that noise can facilitate signal transmission and that an optimal number of ion channels enhances efficiency.

Contribution

It demonstrates that intrinsic channel noise removes the spike threshold and identifies an optimal ion channel count for efficient propagation in a stochastic Hodgkin-Huxley model.

Findings

Intrinsic noise removes the spike threshold.

An optimal number of ion channels maximizes propagation efficiency.

Physiological ion channel numbers align with optimal values.

Abstract

We consider noise-assisted spike propagation in myelinated axons within a multi-compartment stochastic Hodgkin-Huxley model. The noise originates from a finite number of ion channels in each node of Ranvier. For the subthreshold internodal electric coupling, we show that (i) intrinsic noise removes the sharply defined threshold for spike propagation from node to node, and (ii) there exists an optimum number of ion channels which allows for the most efficient signal propagation and it corresponds to the actual physiological values.