Characterizing neural activities evoked by manual acupuncture through spiking irregularity measures

The neural system characterizes information in external stimulations by different spiking patterns. In order to examine how neural spiking patterns are related to acupuncture manipulations, experiments are designed in such a way that different types of manual acupuncture （MA） manipulations are taken at the ＇Zusanli＇ point of experimental rats, and the induced electrical signals in the spinal dorsal root ganglion are detected and recorded. The interspike interval （ISI） statistical histogram is fitted by the gamma distribution, which has two parameters： one is the time-dependent firing rate and the other is a shape parameter characterizing the spiking irregularities. The shape parameter is the measure of spiking irregularities and can be used to identify the type of MA manipulations. The coefficient of variation is mostly used to measure the spike time irregularity, but it overestimates the irregularity in the case of pronounced firing rate changes. However, experiments show that each acupuncture manipulation will lead to changes in the firing rate. So we combine four relatively rate- independent measures to study the irregularity of spike trains evoked by different types of MA manipulations. Results suggest that the MA manipulations possess unique spiking statistics and characteristics and can be distinguished according to the spiking irregularity measures. These studies have offered new insights into the coding processes and information transfer of acupuncture.     

基于广义线性模型的针刺足三里脊髓背根神经活动解码

神经系统以时空编码形式刻画外部刺激信息, 针刺作为对穴位的机械作用可以等效为对神经系统的一种外部刺激. 为了揭示神经系统如何表达和传递针刺作用, 本文设计了不同频率的针刺动物实验, 即在针刺大鼠足三里穴位时获取脊髓背根神经节电信号. 首先, 经过数据预处理获得单神经元动作电位序列并转化为点过程序列. 其次, 应用广义线性模型(GLM)编码针刺作用, 产生模拟的神经放电序列. 另外, 在模型基础上应用贝叶斯解码, 根据神经放电序列重构针刺随时间变化的位移波形. 最后, 基于时间重标度理论应用分位数分位数(Q-Q)图方法检验编码模型与点过程数据的一致性. 结果表明, GLM能够模拟针刺神经编码, 并正确解码针刺信息. 本文为针刺研究提供了新的视角, 对于构建神经系统与机器接口以改善针刺的临床研究具有潜在意义. 关键词： 针刺 点过程 广义线性模型 神经解码     

Adaptive synchronization control of coupled chaotic neurons in an external electrical stimulation

In this paper we present a combined algorithm for the synchronization control of two gap junction coupled chaotic FitzHugh-Nagumo (FHN) neurons in an external electrical stimulation. The controller consists of a combination of dynamical sliding mode control and adaptive backstepping control. The combined algorithm yields an adaptive dynamical sliding mode control law which has the advantage over static sliding mode-based controllers of being chattering-free, i.e., a sufficiently smooth control input signal is generated. It is shown that the proposed control scheme can not only compensate for the system uncertainty, but also guarantee the stability of the synchronized error system. In addition, numerical simulations are also performed to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed adaptive controller.