A fully coupled transient excited state model for the sodium channel. II. Implications for action potential generation, threshold, repetitive firing, and accommodation.

The axon membrane is simulated by standard Hodgkin-Huxley leakage and potassium channels plus a coupled transient excited state kinetic scheme for the sodium channel. This scheme for the sodium channel is as proposed previously by the author. Simulations are presented showing the form of the action potential, threshold behavior, accommodation, and repetitive firing. It is seen that the form of the individual action potential, its all-or-none nature, and its refractory period are well simulated by this model, as they are by the standard Hodgkin-Huxley model. However, the model differs markedly from the Hodgkin-Huxley model with respect to repetitive firing and accommodation to stimulating currents of slowly rising intensity, in ways that are shown to be related to those features of the sodium inactivation which are anomalous to the H-H model. The tendency for repetitive firing is highly dependent on that parameter which primarily determines the existence of the inactivation shift in voltage clamp experiments, in such a way that the more pronounced the inactivation shift, the less the tendency for repetitive firing. The tendency for accommodation is highly dependent on that parameter which primarily determines the 'tauc-tauh' separation, in such a way that the greater the separation the greater the tendency for the membrane to accommodate without firing action potentials to a slowly rising current.