NEUREKA partners at UNIPD have developed the Synaptor model, which is crucial for calibrating the delivery of stimulation to the cultured neurons in the NEUREKA device.

This work’s objective was to model the nanoelectrode-membrane interface for stimulation, providing a framework to set up efficient stimulation protocols through nanoelectrodes of soma and dendrites. For this purpose, we developed a prototypical Verilog-A circuit of the neuronal membrane with voltage-dependent conductances, modeling the sodium and potassium channels. Thus, the model has been extended to build a complete RC network that describes the neuron membrane-nanoelectrode interface, expandable to simulate stimulation of any neuronal compartment. This constitutes an easy-to-use, easily customizable, and compact tool that allows predicting the intracellular potential time-domain evolution when the membrane is stimulated with an arbitrary current through the nanoelectrode, e.g., to identify a minimum input charge/second threshold that induces neuronal firing.

The work is described in the Deliverable D3.1 of the Project