The neuronal and synaptic dynamics underlying post-inhibitory rebound burst related to major depressive disorder in the lateral habenula neuron model

A burst behavior observed in the lateral habenula (LHb) neuron related to major depressive disorder has attracted much attention. The burst is induced from silence by the excitatory N -methyl- D -aspartate (NMDA) synapse or by the inhibitory stimulation, i.e., a post-inhibitory rebound (PIR) burst, which has not been explained clearly. In the present paper, the neuronal and synaptic dynamics for the PIR burst are acquired in a theoretical neuron model. At first, dynamic cooperations between the fast rise of inhibitory γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA) synapse, slow rise of NMDA synapse, and T-type calcium current to evoke the PIR burst are obtained. Similar to the inhibitory pulse stimulation, fast rising GABA current can reduce the membrane potential to a level low enough to de-inactivate the low threshold T-type calcium current to evoke a PIR spike, which can enhance the slow rising NMDA current activated at a time before or after the PIR spike. The NMDA current following the PIR spike exhibits slow decay to induce multiple spikes to form the PIR burst. Such results present a theoretical explanation and a candidate for the PIR burst in real LHb neurons. Then, the dynamical mechanism for the PIR spike mediated by the T-type calcium channel is obtained. At large conductance of T-type calcium channel, the resting state corresponds to a stable focus near Hopf bifurcation and exhibits an “uncommon” threshold curve with membrane potential much lower than the resting membrane potential. Inhibitory modulation induces membrane potential decreased to run across the threshold curve to evoke the PIR spike. At small conductance of the T-type calcium channel, a stable node appears and manifests a common threshold curve with higher membrane potential, resulting in non-PIR phenomenon. The results present the dynamic cooperations between neuronal dynamics and fast/slow dynamics of different synapses for the PIR burst observed in the LHb neuron, which is helpful for the modulations to major depressive disorder.