Firing dynamics of an autaptic neuron

TL;DR

This paper reviews recent research on how autapses, self-connected synapses in neurons, influence neuronal firing patterns, response modulation, and dynamic behaviors, highlighting their role in neural activity regulation.

Contribution

It summarizes recent theoretical and experimental findings on the impact of autapses on neuronal dynamics and response behaviors.

Findings

Autapses can induce switching between firing patterns.

Autapses modulate response to sinusoidal inputs.

Autapses influence firing frequency and spike intervals.

Abstract

Autapses are synapses that connect a neuron to itself in the nervous system. Previously, both experimental and theoretical studies have demonstrated that autaptic connections in the nervous system have a significant physiological function. Autapses in nature provide self-delayed feedback, thus introducing an additional time scale to neuronal activities and causing many dynamic behaviors in neurons. Recently, theoretical studies have revealed that an autapse provides a control option for adjusting the response of a neuron: e.g., an autaptic connection can cause the electrical activities of the Hindmarsh-Rose neuron to switch between quiescent, periodic, and chaotic firing patterns; an autapse can enhance or suppress the mode-locking status of a neuron injected with sinusoidal current; and the firing frequency and interspike interval distributions of the response spike train can also be modified by the autapse. In this paper, we review recent studies that showed how an autapse affects the response of a single neuron.