Description
In the medicinal leech, blood is propelled through the circulatory system by the rhythmic constrictions of two lateral heart tubes. The timing and coordination of these constrictions are controlled by a central pattern generator (Calabrese et al. 1995). This pattern generator comprises a network of seven bilateral pairs of segmental heart (HN) interneurons. The CPG produces rhythmic activity (at about 0.1 Hz) that paces segmental heart motor neurons, which in turn drive the two hearts.
Status
Some discrepancies between neuron models exist, which may require fine tuning ion channels. We verified that ionic current profiles match with original Genesis model. We have yet to verify individual, isolated cell activity. In particular, Cell 3/4 are not behaving correctly. Therefore network activity is not accurate. Slow synapses (SynS) that include membrane voltage modulation are not implemented because they require custom NeuroML components.
Members
Scientific Coordinator: Cengiz Gunay
References
This model was originally developed in: Genesis
The code for this model is hosted on GitHub: https://github.com/RonCalabreseLab/Leech-8Cell-Tutorial-NeuroML