Mechanism of the differentiation of neural responses to excitatory input signals

A dynamical mechanism of the generation of qualitatively different neural responses to typical excitatory stimuli such as an applied current or AMPA and NMDA synaptic currents has been presented. The mechanism is based on a nonlinearity simulating the calcium-dependent potassium current. It has been shown with the FitzHugh-Nagumo equation that, in the presence of such a nonlinearity, only the NMDA synaptic current can strongly increase the frequency of self-sustained oscillations, whereas other stimuli suppress neural activity.